


And Our Gods Are Kind

by Darkarashi



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Avvar, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Arranged Marriage, Avvar Cullen, Avvar Culture, Cultural Differences, Cunnilingus, Dalish Culture, F/M, Masturbation, Mirror Sex, Mirrors, No Inqusition, Oral Sex, Pregnancy Kink, Public Sex, Ritual Public Sex, Ritual Sex, Sex Magic, dominant cullen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-08
Updated: 2017-06-25
Packaged: 2018-04-19 17:43:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 61,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4755341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darkarashi/pseuds/Darkarashi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Hold in decline. A Dalish Clan on the run. A marriage promised to further the desires of both. </p><p>To be gifted a wife was a high honor amongst the Avvar, and the Dalish brought them a Shaman unmatched, the Jewel of her Clan. The gift was one of great importance, and one that could not be un-given. Forever bonded by oath and soon enough, deed, the Dalish and Avvar each must reconcile their own cultures with the unbearable, unknowable need for the other that they felt in their chests. </p><p>Or, in short: When an Avvar man lusts for his Dalish bride, and she, in turn for him, everyone profits.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. To Meet a Spouse

“The Thane Samson and The Thane Alrik have both taken wives of the Dalish blood. Their Holds grow prosperous, their goats fat, and the clanbeasts have never been more content. The Gods and Spirits bless these marriages, Thane, and now a Dalish Clan approaches us with a wife for you to steal and you refuse it?”

“Alrik is married to a _child_. He’ll rip her in two if he ever forces a babe on her,” the Thane of the Hold growled, his hands tightening on the hilt of his blade.

“The girl was smart. Her knots were tight, and she sang a song to her own Gods – a _short_ one. He has her for but a year.”

The Thane did not look any more pleased with the news. None of this sat well with him. His people – his Hold was struggling, moreso now that the other Holds were beginning to expand their territories, consuming game and resources that were now lost to his own hunters. The Gods were not pleased with their actions, but the Thane could not bear to believe that _marriage_ was what the Gods demanded of him in these times. Marriage, not a sacrifice to ensure the success of his hunters? Marriage, to a woman he had not known or seen?

But the Augur insisted, at length, and multiple times, and it was truly beginning to seem as if there was no other choice. The Spirits had made their will known through his faithful friend and Spiritual guide, and it was becoming more and more obvious that there was no way but to agree to the proposal that this Dalish Clan Lavellan was bringing. He would have to marry, to please the Gods and save his people. He only hoped the Gods would be kind in who they guided him to.

If nothing else, however, he could ensure that he would not be bringing harm to a woman who was more child than anything else.

“Smart or no, Alrik is not gentle. She will be suffering. I will not take-”

“She did what was good for her People, Thane, and now you must do what is best for yours. Meet with the Dalish. See if their choice of mate for you is at least someone you could bear to be married to for a year.”

“I will not wed a **child** as Alrik has done.”

“The spirits do not speak of her as they would a child, fear not. The one to be your wife is known to them. She is of dream-stuff as I am, and the Spirits of our Hold have been communing with those of hers. They sing of her, Thane. They _sing_.”

That certainly took the Thane by surprise.

“The Spirits sing of her? The Dalish one?” He paused for only a moment. “…What do they say?”

Asking such a question was a good way to have the augur talk one’s ear off for a good long hour, as the Spirits were talkative, and rarely spoke clearly. All of those who resided in the Land of the Dreams oft spoke in numbing riddle, and the Thane would rather weep battle-tears than be forced to sit through the stories of the Spirits. This time, though, it seemed important.

“She wears teeth and fang as a second skin. Her voice carries through the Land of the Dreams, compelling even them to listen. She is bright and beautiful in their gaze, fair and blade-honed. They tell of her command, her power, her protection. They speak of her in the tongues forgotten, and she sings, she sings, she _sings_ to them in ways I never could.”

The augur stared up at the Thane, his eyes wide with wonder. Despite his own misgivings with the Land of Dreams, the Thane could not help but be swept along with the wonder of his friend. His heart swelled and he felt the first needle-pricks of anticipation and want stutter along his skin.

“They hum parts of her chants to me, and I have heard her singing when I talk with them. She is a wonder. Were you to mate her, the child could be the next Great Augur. The child _would_ be Legend-Marked by fate. Any child mated upon her would be a Thane unmatched, Cullen.”

Thane Cullen Ar Ruther O Kingshold, known now as Cullen Lion-Hearted for his deeds, pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed heavily. Marriage was not a prospect he relished. Not when his Hold was already struggling. The ritual and preparations would only distract him from doing his Gods-given duties. He had sacrifices to make and omens to have read, for the hunters reported game being scarce, and crafters reported tools dulling before their time, and all around, the other Holds prospered. The people he was responsible for were suffering.

And the Gods asked of him to marry a woman they found, from a foreign race, and culture.

“I do not seek to think of children yet. I must meet with her first. I must know of the arrangement her Clan seeks with my Hold, and what oaths will be asked of us in exchange for the gift of a bride.”

The augur nodded.

“That is a prudent thought, my Thane.”

Cullen sighed, and waved the augur away.

He had much to think about. There was a need. His people needed this from him.

* * *

The Dalish party arrived on the dawn’s rise three weeks after he had sent a group of his best hunters out to deliver a missive of acceptance. As if appearing out of the fog between one breath and the next, a contingent of elves stood at the gates of the Hold. Their leader was an age-worn woman, with violet eyes and greyed hair, and she stood carefully at attention, waiting for the door in front of her to be opened.

Flanking her were two women who looked as she did, if only younger. To her right, an elf whose auburn hair was only just barely beginning to grey at her temples, with purple eyes and a fierce grip on her staff. To the left, a younger woman than the both of them, age barely touching its fingers across her skin. Her eyes were purple, as the others, but banding the purple was a ring of blue so bright it seemed to glow. Her head was shaved down the sides, and the remainder of her long hair was braided back in a nest of brass and glass beads.

The last one held no weapon, no singular item that any one person could identify as being personal. But her bared skin bore the mark of a dozen tattoos, tracing down her arms and up her neck, across her face in a winding, intentional, pattern.

Behind the three was a small portion of their clan, in the best regalia a Dalish clan could ever be expected to have. Nomads in a way lost to the Avvar people, the Dalish at the gate stood at ease, each lean and sinewy compared to the relative bulk of many of the Avvar. Their lives pushed different demands upon them and they adjusted appropriately.

The gates opened, and the three women walked through, leaving their Clan standing outside. The guards at the gate stared uneasily at the Dalish gathered in a loose semicircle around the entrance to the Hold. The Dalish stared, implacably, back, waiting for their leaders to return.

Without fanfare, or guidance, the trio walked calmly through the Hold, eyes ahead and in various appearances of relaxation. The eldest’s eyes were half-lidded and she walked with an ease of grace that only came from decades of experience. There was no doubt in her body, no single shred of such a weakness. She walked only with power, intensity and focus, and even the Avvar found themselves moving out of her way, averting their eyes, some even ducking their heads down to avoid her gaze. Were she of a Hold, she would be Augur, if not Thane outright..

The second eldest walked with power, but there was a nervousness, a skittishness to her movements. She looked between the eldest and the youngest, her mouth twisted down into a frown. She sidestepped out of the way of those who infringed upon her path, shaking her head every time she was made to do so. No sneer touched her face, she did not raise her voice or demand others to move, she moved as she needed to, around obstacles and those who would be in her way. Hers was a quieter force, once that did not intimidate to incite movement.

The last was a hurricane, a force of nature. Anyone who got in her way received a snarl and a baring of teeth that would make even the hardest of warriors flinch away. She walked with _ferocity_ in her steps, stalking behind her elders, challenging anyone to stand in her way. There was no weakness of will in her. Of them, she drew the attention of the Avvar most. Hers was the stride of someone who would not let anyone dishonor her intentions, even her intention to walk.

Together, they were a trio of Dalish women, together, the three of them set the air to vibrating, humming of their arrival, making the mages of the Hold pause and take notice.

They walked directly to the Thane’s Hall, pausing only briefly to allow the doors to be opened for them, before entering the Hall. There was no fanfare, as was typical, but the eldest did direct her gaze to the seated Thane and offer a short bow. From behind her, each of the others offered their own, deeper, bows.

Thane Cullen sat upon the throne of his forefathers, clad in his finest red-dyed leathers and fur, though in true Avvar fashion, he was barely covered at all. His chest was bare, save for the opulent fur and leather mantle about his shoulders and the heavy gold chain that held the mantle about his shoulder. He wore a fine pelt of a snow-lion about his waist, and he had been careful to wear the supple leather trousers that his various advisors had suggested would behoove him to the bride he was attempting to woo. As respect, he did not wear any weapon, unusual for him, but he knew that the Dalish treated weapons differently from his people.

None of the women in front of him seemed too impressed, however. The youngest gave him a somewhat interested once-over, and then her attention was elsewhere, skimming across his halls, looking for something, anything, that she could find interesting. Cullen had to be very careful to keep his gaze on the leader of the three, though his eyes did stray more than he would like to admit, back to the youngest of them.

“You are welcomed into the Hall of Cullen Lion-Hearted, Thane of Kingshold,” the Hall's Announcer intoned gravely, before excusing themselves from the room.

“En’an’sal’en sul mar arla. Blessings upon your house, Thane. You are speaking with the Keeper, First, and Second of The Most Noble Clan Lavellan, of the Free Marches, Once of Arlathan,” the eldest Dalish said, just as gravely in return.

Cullen inclined his head just barely. Almost guiltily, he looked back to the one who had drawn his gaze as he did so, certainly more curious than he would care to admit about her. The youngest rolled her eyes when she caught the action, but did not move otherwise.

“I am honored to do as such,” Cullen finally responded.

The oldest smiled broadly at him.

“I am known amongst those not of our People as Deshanna. My First, Liluye, child of my flesh. My Second, Aurum, grand-child of my flesh. We are here to treat with you on a matter of intrinsic importance to us both.”

Cullen nodded.

“I am honored, again, to meet you, Shaman-Keeper Deshanna.”

He prayed for the fortitude to not say anything unduly offensive to these women. The Dalish were unknown to much of his Hold, for they did not often come this far into the mountains to do trade. The women were barefooted, and clothed in a way that suggested they were not as attuned to the cold temperatures in the area. They had come here specifically to talk with him and create a bond between their Clan and his. Even with the weeks since he had asked their presence, and all the time therein to prepare, he felt the tension low in his gut from nerves. He had been trained and drilled and coached extensively by those who knew more of the Dalish than he, and the Spirits of his Hold who had a gift for glib speaking and negotiation had received more sacrifices than they had in the many years before.

Deshanna, at least, seemed amicable, smiling broadly at the amalgamated title and moving to the next topic of conversation gracefully.

“The Clans of your Avvar have taken Dalish brides, and in doing so, have brought the prosperity of the Gods to their aravels. We seek the opportunity to do the same with your Clan, Lion-Hearted One. My First has given her heart to her child’s Father, and refused my original intention to have her offered. In her stead, we would present my Second, Aurum.”

Aurum bowed her head in acquiescence, not meeting Cullen’s eyes, but watching her Keeper carefully. He noted this without any outward sign that he had done so. Her focus was on her Keeper. His was on her, as her Keeper spoke her praises.

“She is a mage unmatched by any other Clan. Those who have already sought pairings with your people have offered only mundane elvhen to the Clans. We offer to you the jewel of our Clan, our Aurum, the Golden Dawn. She is strong and nimble, quick-witted and sharp. Her devotion to our Gods has won her the right of wearing their marks upon her skin, and her skills in the arcane arts set her far and above any other. Our lineage is one of mages and powerful leaders, and is one of the only gifts our small Clan can give to another.”

Deshanna held a hand out to Aurum, who took it without hesitation.

“Lion-Hearted one, would you take my grandchild as your bride, for the good of our Clans?”

Cullen hid his surprise well. He had not expected negotiations to come to this point so quickly. It was clear that Aurum had not either, but she stood beside her grandmother, tall and regal. She was beautiful, that much was obvious to him, and the thought of having her in his bed, having his babes upon her breast…it made him ache in ways he was not _wholly_ unfamiliar with.

“What boon do you seek from my people in return, Shaman-Keeper Deshanna?”

The woman smiled.

“Free travel across the lands you consider yours, trade with your tradesmen, and access to the things we cannot obtain on our own. We wish for your assistance in survival and thriving, but nothing more. Our battles will not be yours, nor will yours become ours unless we wish it.”

Cullen did not like the sound of that, or the sound of her smile around her words.

“You give a grand gift for trade-rights, and only those? I am not convinced of your truths, Shaman-Keeper.”

“We seek only that which is ours by right. Our clan is matrilineal, and matriarchal. Any daughter my grandbabe bears will be rightful heir to our Clan, if she is a mage, and rightful heir to yours, as well.”

 _That_ was more what he was expecting, to be truthful.

“Shamans cannot inherit the title,” he said, careful to keep his tone from being accusatory.

“She will. Over any sons, she will inherit.”

“If she is…mundane, yes.”

“If she is anything like her mothers before her, I would encourage you to reconsider that stance before she grows too old, or you may find yourself learning the folly of standing between a Lavellan and what is her own.”

Cullen took the chastisement for what it was - a warning, but an acceptance as well. The bride was a gift, but there was an expectation for a greater gift in return. The Dalish anticipated a girl-child to be the eldest born, and seemed to think her already promised to the Land of the Dreams. But they did not demand such a thing, merely cautioned against. Caution, he could handle.

“Perhaps. We will trade well with you in the years of marriage between Shaman-Third Aurum and I. Our leathers, our crafts, our meats and grain, all available for fair trading between two honored Clans. Your lands and ours will be indistinguishable, and our scouts shall know of your Clan’s colors so that you may pass through the mountains unmolested. We will share feasts with you, and your people will be welcomed amongst our own. For this, Shaman-Third Aurum and I shall wed in the manners of both our People -”

Aurum opened her mouth to stop him from finishing the oath, anything to keep him from binding that into the laws of the contract, but Deshanna shushed her before her objection could be known. Cullen paused, confused as to what Aurum could have wanted to say, but Deshanna gestured for him to continue, and after he found his voice, he did just that.

“For this, we shall wed, as the Avvar and Dalish do. Shall it be done?”

“For the price of marriage as Dalish do we ask only that you consider our Clan an extension of your Hold, and all that entails. Thane Cullen, we ask that you consider Clan Lavellan part of your Hold, as we will consider your Hold of our Clan and do our duty to you and yours.”

Cullen blinked, but nodded. Marriage had always been the goal. He nodded, allowing her the addition he had always thought would be a part of this negotiation. Among the Avvar, a woman left her Hold when she married, and did not return, but if the Dalish asked him to look after them, as they looked after his people, it was a hard offerance to refuse. The Dalish trackers and hunters outstripped the talent of many of his men, and extra eyes in the forests and mountains were always appreciated.

“As you say, Shaman-Keeper. Shall we swear it as such now?”

Deshanna nodded and turned back to Aurum for just long enough to see the pain in her grandchild’s eyes. The elder waited for the younger to look away, her head bowed in acquiescence before she moved to stand with Cullen.

The Avvar and Dalish rarely wrote such things down, as paper was a rarity enough that organizing all of the treaties, promises and oaths onto it would be both a waste of time and precious resource. Instead, Cullen called for the officiate in charge of such matters, and after beckoning Deshanna forward to clarify the finer points of what they had agreed to, the two of them made the formal oath before the Oath-Bearer.

Aurum stood, as if struck dumb, where she had been left. Her mother reached out to gather her daughter into her arms, hugging her close. Aurum returned the embrace, burying her face in her mother's neck and breathing deeply to calm herself.

“Ir abelas, esha’lin. It was needed. He asked for what we could not have expected.” ( _I am so sorry, my child._ )

Aurum took a moment to hold her mother, but she heard the tap of Deshanna’s staff on the ground and knew it was time to let go. She stepped away from the comfort of her mother and turned to her Keeper, and grandmother.

“Child mine, know this – I would not ask such a thing without need. You are precious to me, to your mother, to our Clan and History. But this is where you are needed.”

Aurum’s lips curled up over fangs. The barest thread of magic hummed around her, a mantle rising, a warning and posturing -

“Aurum, remember yourself.”

“Ar te’-!” ( _I am not-_ )

“ _Aurum_ ,” Deshanna snapped, and Aurum flinched as if she had been struck, shrinking away from her Keeper. “This is for the good of our people. Do _not_ disgrace us.”

“Vin, mamala,” came Aurum’s immediate muted response. “Ir abelas.” ( _Yes, Grandma. I am sorry._ )

“As well you should be, my child. Do not give us cause to have to break this oath we have made. You know the meaning of this to our People.”

“Vin, mamala.”

“You know the Avvar are particular about their marriage vows. His request to be married both ways will be dealt with after his people’s marriage is made. If you cannot find it in you to carry through, we will persist and find another way. But one marriage must occur for there to be any validity. Two will be needed for it to last.”

“…vin, mamala.”

Her duty was submission to her Keeper, and if this was what Deshanna asked of her, then she would do it. For her Clan, anything. With joy, anything asked.

“Nothing else has changed, da’lath’in. Nothing. You are child of Lavellan, and the blood of our foremothers still flows through you.”

“Vin, mamala.”

Deshanna reached up to rest her fingers against Aurum’s cheek. Aurum turned away, eyes closed and her ears dropping down. Her posture spoke of defeat, and Deshanna was quick to gather her grandchild into her arms.

“Abelas, da’lath’in. Thane Cullen, we will return in a month’s time from the next full moon for the marriage ceremony of our People. It will take time to prepare.” ( _I am sorry, my little heart._ )

Aurum nodded, and stood where she was as Deshanna and Liluye both embraced her. They turned to leave and Aurum stood where she had been left, alone. Cullen had at least had the courtesy to not infringe upon the goodbye, and stood at a distance that had afforded them privacy. They were bound now, by Oath and soon enough, Deed.

The heavy door to the Hall slammed shut behind Liluye and Deshanna, and Aurum looked to her husband-to-be, waiting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Where o where did Darkarashi go?"
> 
> She was researching Avvar culture, and re-re-re-reading Fenxshiral's Project Elvhen to make a story that was true to both the history of the Dalish and Avvar both. Much of what is in here regarding the Avvar is canon, especially the marriage rite and their serious opinions on the roles of Spirits and Gods in their lives. 
> 
> Other stuff is mostly because I genuinely enjoy writing these two idiots in compromising situations. What's fanfic without a little fun?


	2. To Discuss Marriage

“I should have a translator brought in, or we won’t get anywhere,” Cullen muttered to himself, rubbing the back of his neck.

The uncomfortable silence had been going on for too long, and he was starting to find it oppressive.

“I speak Avvish brokenly, Common and Tevene fluently, on top of my native tongue, Cullen,” Aurum said, her mouth pulling down into a frown at the assumption.

Cullen’s brows shot up.

“My apologies, I did not-”

“Think to ask, I realized.”

Aurum rolled a shoulder and sniffed. She supposed it was not best to talk to her _betrothed_ as she was, and tried to school herself into calmness once again. But everything she had been told and trained for had just changed in a single moment, and she was more than the smallest bit irritated.

“Shaman-Second Aurum, my apologies. I did not mean to offer offense.”

The apology sounded sincere enough to get Aurum to nod and relax.

“Well and good…Thane? How do your people refer to each other when they are betrothed? Titled, or no?”

“Cullen is my name, I want you to call me that.”

“Then I am Aurum, to you. Cullen.”

He smiled. If nothing else, he was passing handsome when he smiled. There were far worse looking men to be betrothed to. That was a blessing, at the very least. She had only heard of his deeds and temperament until the moment she had entered his hall, and even though she had pledged to her Clan that she would marry him, it was comforting to see that he was not hard on her eyes. For a human, at least.

(Oooh, all that _muscle_ , though.)

“Aurum,” he purred, trying the unfamiliar word out on his tongue.

She had to swallow the sudden knot in her throat. No one said her name like _that_. The ‘r’ lost its half-trill, and instead came out of his mouth in a near-growl. It was…different. Very different, but different in a way that she could, perhaps come to enjoy hearing.

If she had to sleep by him as wife by his people’s counting, she could stomach that, and perhaps gladly, if his mind was as attractive as his body. She could lead people, she could _do this_.

Silence reigned for long moments, the two of them standing far apart from each other, watching each other carefully. Judging each other. They were strangers, expected to marry for the good of both their peoples. By all reasoning, they should at least be able to tolerate each other’s presence. It would help to know more, but where to start?

“Do…you wish to see the Hold, Aurum?”

“No. I do not want to walk outside just yet. My Clan is still close. It would be,” she paused, trying to find a word in Common that translated the feeling appropriately. “Painful. To hear them leaving. I have never been apart from them in such a way. Only briefly. They are home.”

“Oh.”

Aurum turned towards the massive door that blocked her path back to them. Her aravel would be brought into the Hold, without the spokes to its wheels in place. Aurum was not to follow behind and seek to join her Clan again. She was Second of Lavellan, yes, and that came with privilege and power. But now, she was Wife of Kingshold. Or would be.

Was expected to be.

“Is there any special significance to the Hall, Cullen.”

Her question came out flat, grit between clenched teeth as she _felt_ her Clan leave her. It was not pleasant. She had spent her life bound to the will of the Clan and those within it, and to suddenly feel them leaving her hurt more than she had expected it would.

“For feastdays and-”

“When are feastdays.”

“The Augur decides-”

“What is an augur, I am not familiar with that word.”

“He is our leader-Shaman.”

“Please show me where the Augur works I would like to be around other mages.”

“I cannot just yet. He is working with the Spirits and is not to be disturbed. I will send for him when his work is done.”

Her hands curled into fists. That did not help her sudden urge to flee and run to her mother and grandmother. They were leaving! She should be with them!

“Fine. Later then. May I see where I will be sleeping. I would like to make it home. More like home. Lay wards. Familiarize.”

“Your room is to be mine. We would share but-”

Aurum growled lowly. Her temper was rising, her ire roused, and she felt the bile of panic burning the back of her throat. Her Clan was leaving and she was not with them. It was wrong.

“There is a problem, speak it.”

“We are not yet married.”

She looked up to Cullen, her brows drawn down, and was shocked to see him _blushing_. This was a powerful Avvar man, and his cheeks were red and he wasn’t meeting her stare. Why on earth was he blushing?

“And this is a problem, how?”

“We cannot share a bed until we are married, and we cannot marry until I steal you.”

“I was a _gift_. There is no need to steal me,” she snarled.

“Tradition. A groom steals his bride from her Hold, to prove that he is strong enough. It honors the spirits and the Gods, and -”

Aurum groaned and looked away.

“You _can’t_ steal me from my Hold, I don’t _have_ one. My Clan has left me, and you would be dead if you tried to steal me from them in truth.”

“Yes, I understand, but I cannot have you without i-”

“We will be clear about one thing Cullen. You can never ‘have’ me. I am myself and my own. You are yourself, and your own. Marriage is not me giving myself to you. Marriage is completion. Marriage among my people is rare for how much it requires. You and I – you _asked_ for marriage as my people marry, but you don’t understand it.”

He approached her, carefully. Aurum allowed it.

“Explain it to me then. We should talk of these things.”

“Marriage in the Dalish is undoable. It is our one permanence. To marry is to be made one by the Countings of our Creators. One and truly one. Only ever one again. There is no way to undo it. Were we to truly marry as my peoples count it, there would never be anyone who would consider me as… _available_ again. Nor you. Your marriages, in your own way, if there are ever any others, would count against you. You would be being unfaithful to me. Your wife. That. Is what you asked for. Ignoring the ceremony that would be required, your Oath binds us permanently. No matter how impermanent your people consider marriage, it’s permanent for my people.”

Cullen’s stomach dropped, and without thinking, he reached out to take hold of her hands. She allowed the touch, and was shocked to find the calluses on their hands catching as he stepped closer to her to press her hands against his chest.

“I – I didn’t _mean_ – not like that, Aurum! I didn’t, I was only…Lady Sky, I never intended to do that. I wanted you to be able to celebrate your marriage, as I know the other Thanes have had their brides express a need or want for more acknowledgement of their Gods and – I didn’t _know_. I would have never said that, otherwise.”

“It is the Oath made, by my Keeper to you. My duty is to uphold it.”

She did not look at him, not wanting to acknowledge how his eyes looked like twin suns and how her heart gave a traitorous flop in her chest. Cullen was attractive, Creators preserve her, and Aurum had only just then noticed the scar over his lip and that was attractive to her twice over.

“I would never ask you to-”

“ _You_ didn’t _. Deshanna_ did. I will do as Deshanna asked, with joy and pleasure, for that is the way to bring honor to my Clan. But I do not know from where you could steal me. I doubt it is impressive to steal a woman from her aravel when the aravel cannot move.”

“Tradition-” he started, wanting to explain to his almost-wife the intricacies of the stealing and what it meant and how she should dress and act and what she should expect, but Aurum held up a hand and interrupted him again.

“Fine. Tomorrow, come steal me away from my aravel.”

Cullen blinked, but nodded, and when she looked down at where his hand still rested on her arm, an eyebrow lifted, he was quick to move his hand away.

“Will you be coming willingly? The marriage would be the day after.” (Korth save him, he was taking about marriage with an elf woman who was beautiful and powerful and he had only met her but an hour ago.)

“Which makes for a better show, Thane? Dalish wildmage, spitting and angry, but controlled by the _stro~ong_ Thane of the Hold? Or a demure bride, walking serenely at your side?”

He bit back his shudder and clenched his jaw hard enough to make his teeth ache to stop the words from tumbling out. She could not know what it meant to suggest what she did, but that did not stop the flash of battle-heat that cut through him. If he could not choose a mate for himself, then he could at least have the righteous struggle to tame his bride.

“Controlled,” he bit out.

“Then I will fight, but come willingly enough. By the end. I take it I shouldn’t actually endeavor to flee, nor to wound you?”

He exhaled sharply and turned away. Her words were not helping. Idly, he reached for the hilt of the sword he usually wore, but it was not there and he was left fumbling for anything that would ground him in reality instead of delicious fantasy of having her struggling against him, small and thin but so _confident_ in her power that he wanted to test her mettle right then. She was challenging him and he was not Lion-Hearted for cowing from challenges.

“If you think yourself capable of either, try it,” he growled, turning to look at her once again.

Aurum **laughed** , throwing her head back and letting her mirth flow out of her. Cullen bit the inside of his cheek and tasted blood. The column of her throat was pale and slender, unmarked save for the delicate lines of her tattoos (he must remember, later, to ask her about them) and he wanted to taste the skin there and leave lust-marks all along her flesh.

“I am more than capable of outstripping you, Cullen. You will win at the end, but that is only at the end.”

And that was the lynchpin in it all – he _was_ going to win, he _was_ going to steal her away, he _was_ going to have her. He was going to _take_ her. Spirits save his soul, he would devour her if he could.

“After the taking, we will be going to my rooms. As you’re to be my wife by the sun’s setting the next day, you are allowed there. There is an ex…pectation.”

Aurum rolled her eyes.

“Do your men and women expect to hear their Thane make his new bride-to-be scream his name?”

The way his breath hitched and the tips of his ears flushed was the best answer she could receive. Her smile was wolfish and that flash of battle-heat darkened into lust.

“Tradition, is this?” she asked with a smile.

“Not to please the spirits this time, but the people.”

“Who want to know their Thane can truly conquer the Dalish shaman he is to wed?”

“In a way, yes.”

Aurum shook her head.

“You’re attractive enough to bed, and we will be married by your counting the next day. If it is needed, I am not opposed. If I were truly unwilling, you would not be touching me at all, and I would have told Deshanna I could not do this. But…”

She let her eyes rove his body, this time not as a woman looking upon a man she was being made to marry, but as a woman looking upon a potential lover. Cullen noticed and straightened his back, preening ever so slightly beneath her gaze. He was, she decided at the end of her roving, that he was, in fact, very attractive. Cullen had already decided he liked how she looked well enough to eagerly anticipate taking her into his bed. Marriage did not need to mean romance if the sex was good enough to see them through.

“I would not mind it.”

He smirked and stepped closer to her, daring to see how close she would allow him into her personal space.

“And here I thought you were going to comment on my ears,” he said, half-jesting.

He had been told of the Dalish's _fascination_ with their long, mobile ears, having been warned against touching them improperly or before being invited to. One of the other Shamans spoke of what she had seen when a Orlesian merchant had dared brush a strand of hair behind the ear of a Dalish hunter, and it had impressed upon him a understanding that ears were a...sensitive subject for these people.

“No, but feel free to tell me how beautiful mine are. A woman enjoys the compliments, after all,” Aurum said, rolling her eyes.

“As you wish, Aurum. I have never seen ears as delicate and slender as yours. They are beautiful, and I long for the familiarity to know their ridges and whorls.”

Aurum felt her blush all over her face, and took a step back. Not far enough to maintain the distance she had been at previously, but enough to give herself some breathing room as Cullen watched her with a heated stare.

“Cullen that’s-”

“Something that I would expect you haven’t heard much? Do Dalish not compliment? I know you are a people proud of your ears, but even if you were Shaman-Second, certainly men and women alike have taken the time to compliment you before.”

“Not like that! It’s like…you just…” she trailed off, reaching up to touch the tips of her ears.

“Oh, it’s the touching, is it? Is it lewd, then, for me to want to run my fingers along their edges? To want to pull them, pinch them, _twist_ their tips?”

Aurum gasped and felt her blush deepen. There was no one else around, and no reason to be embarrassed that he was saying such things out _loud_ in _public_. Those were words to whisper to a lover in the night, but he was standing and declaring them as fact in the public Hall. Her knees trembled, but he gathered her into his arms, and when she did not struggle away from him, he held her tight.

“The Gods would be displeased if I did not tell my wife how I found her. And I find you, wife-to-be-mine, _very_ attractive.”

He smelled like fur and leather and sweat, and she could feel the hot, _hard_ press of his cock against her hip. Aurum bit her lip and he watched the movement with the intensity of a predator considering prey.

But…they _were_ to be married, and that meant time enough to know each other better. Time later, not now. Now, when they were still new to the other, when they still did not know what of the other was distasteful, now was a very good time to see if sexual attraction followed through.

He made her feel small, which was odd for an elf as tall as she was. His presence overwhelmed, and he was not even a _mage_ , but Aurum felt the same instinctive need to follow order rise in her with him as she did with an elder-ranked mage. When he dipped his head down closer to hers, she found herself leaning up, trying to be taller to close those last few bits of space between her lips and his because oh, would it not feel lovely to kiss him right now?

“O-oh?” she croaked, wincing at the crack in her voice. Since when did her voice _ever_ do that?

“ _Yes_. By the Gods, you are _beautiful_. More than any one being has any right to be, and I am going to-”

“Thane Cullen! You are needed!”

Aurum was quick to push his hands away from her waist as soon as his distraction loosened his grip. She stepped back, away from him, a blush setting her cheeks on fire. Nervously, she reached up to tug on the lower lobe of her left ear, turning away from Cullen as he went about the business of the Hold. Her mind was awhirl with the ideas that she had been entertaining about Cullen and what, exactly she wanted to do with him. Not even _to_ him. With him.

Creators save her, she was a mess already. Not even an hour into this and she was already a-tremble at the thought of her human husband pinning her down with his weight and power and –

 _For Mythal’s sake, Aurum, quit it_.

As soon as she was able, she made her excuse to get outside. Her Clan was far enough away that she could not hear or smell them any longer, and that allayed some of the momentary panic she had been struck with before. That did make things better, a bit. She found her aravel with minimal effort, and as she had thought, the spokes of the wheels had been removed, enough that moving her aravel much more than it already had been would break the wheels.

It was familiar, at least.

The crowd around it, however, was not. She dispersed them with a growl, and climbed into her aravel – the closest thing she had ever had to a permanent home. Her grandmother and mother had both left notes for her, laying on the bed, but Aurum did not read them immediately. She took the time to lock the door to her aravel and breathe.

That… _thing_ that had just happened with Cullen was unbecoming over her. She had nearly been bowled over by a _human_ , nearly brought to her knees by him holding her, and even now? The thought of how strong he had been, how he had smelled, how _close_ he had been to her after _saying_ those things made her ache with need. She bit her knuckle until the pain made the ache between her legs subside. She had a long day ahead of her and couldn’t be distracted. There was much to learn about things.

But first, a nice nap, and then her grandmother’s and mother’s letters. After that, she would talk to some of the people in the Hold about what to do.

Before she could do anything, however, a note was slid under the door into her aravel, and Aurum checked it quickly. Whoever had written it had elegant, flowing handwriting, something she did not expect from an Avvar, but at least the author had the consideration to write the note in Common, instead of Avvish.

 _We have not yet met, Second Aurum. I am Dorian, Augur of Kingshold._  
_I have been speaking with the Spirits and others of the Hold._  
 _In order to facilitate the requirements of our Traditions being carried out,_  
 _I fear I must ask you to remain within the bounds of your aravel for the day._  
 _Your meal will be brought to you, and there will be a guard placed around the aravel_  
 _to keep you safe._  
  
_If you have need, please throw a note at their head, they know to bring it to me._  
  
_I look forward to meeting you tomorrow, after Cullen has stolen you._  
 _Or later, if the two of you are too…entangled after the stealing._

_-Dorian_

 

Well that certainly made her day much easier to handle. Nap, then some mead she had tucked away, and then letter-reading and another nap. Good day. Tomorrow she would be ‘stolen’ and the day after married, but those were both problems for another time.


	3. To Steal a Woman

The issue that had presented itself, interrupting his and Aurum's moment, lasted through most of his day, Cullen was sad to find. When he went to talk with Aurum, his Augur, Dorian, intercepted him, telling him of the plan to make it more acceptable that Aurum was being stolen from within the Hold – she was to stay in her aravel, the queer looking landship that was currently sitting not too far from where the holdbeast rested when the great beast came home from hunting.

That way, when he went to her tomorrow, there would be an established precedent for her living elsewhere and _being_ taken from it, by him.

Cullen growled lowly at the thought, now that he was alone in his rooms, waiting for the time to come for him to steal her. Sunrise could not come fast enough. His duties for the day were done, his meal consumed, and now all he had was the growing darkness and the thoughts of what he was to _do_ on the morrow’s rise made that dark lust-heat grow in his gut again. Alone, in his bedroom for the last night before he was married to his gift-bride, Cullen found himself thinking of her.

What else was he to do? She was to be his bride, and he had asked for the Dalish way of marriage as well – which she said would bind them together forever. That was not immediate, perhaps to give them time to restate the Oath? Perhaps not. It did not matter, for he was getting married to the elf woman within two days time, and tomorrow he was going to steal her.

As it had done since he was a boy first dreaming of husbanding a wife, the thought thrilled him.

Stealing a bride was what every Avvar boy dreamed of, and what every Avvar girl anticipated. It was a test of strength and cunning. No one went meekly. No, the women – even those who ached desperately for the man taking them and had entered negotiations with the man’s family and arranged for the time and place of their taking – they always fought back. There was no place for weakness in their culture, and the women wanted to make sure that their men were just as tough and ready to protect a family as they were.

The brides kicked and screamed and fought, and their families could join in if they so wished. Being caught was bad, losing the woman was worse, and Aurum had seemed so _confident_ that if he was pursuing her, she would leave him behind. He wanted to test her. Wanted to see how strong she was, wanted to see her heart’s-blood racing beneath her skin, the battle-flush on her flesh, he wanted to see her wild-eyed and _wanting_ and he wanted to –

He wanted _her_.

With her hair the color of gold touched by copper, and her purple eyes ringed in blue, with her tattoos and the sinuous form of her body so _different_ than his own people, lean and thin and proud and challenging, he wanted her. He wanted her beneath him, wailing and willing, wet and open.

Gods save him, he wanted to know how far across her body those tattoos of hers stretched. He wanted to see them twist and bend across her as he bent her over and rutted her from behind.

His hand roved down to cup himself through the supple leather of his trousers. Lust-fire struck his blood and he grunted at the suddenness of it all. He felt like a youngling all over again, first discovering friction and his cock and the wonderful combination of the two, excepting now he was **not** just barely over the cusp of manhood. He was nearing thirty-and-five and here he was, fumbling with the laces on his trousers, slicking his palm with his tongue so he could jerk his hand across his own heated flesh and imagine it to be her instead.

His hand was too broad, but he had felt the roughness of calluses on her hands, and that helped soothe the fantasy back into something palatable.

His wife, spitting mad and full of fire, snarling and fighting, biting and growling, not stopping even as she sank onto his cock with a sigh, her fingers digging into his chest, her delicious heat wet and encompassing him. His _wife_ , her legs wrapped around his waist, back arching, her throat in his teeth, her moans sweet against his tongue, clawing down his back, leaving welts and blood in the wake of her nails. _His_ wife, bent over their bed as he took her from behind, her hair wrapped around his fist, mewling his name in her lilting native tongue.

The fantasy was all at once too much and not enough, Gods and Spirits, not enough. He hardly knew the one they would soon call his wife, he hardly had spoken to her, and yet here he was, aching for her, burning for her, fantasizing of her without any other knowledge of her than a brief conversation. So his mind found ways to supplement the little information he had until he was drowning in supposed sensation. Aurum was nomad, Aurum was wildness and he could imagine her outside as well as in.

The smell of the wild – earthy and wet, snowmelt and spring – he could imagine it on her hair as easily as the dabs of mud across her bared feet. He could see a smear of mud on her collarbone, taste it beneath his tongue. The roughness of the grit of earth, underlain by the salt of sweat on her skin, the bite of frost’s kiss on his bared flesh, and he had her out in the open, beneath the wide blue sky. They were naked together, rolling in grass and flowers, mud touched, but not clad for war.

His hands clawed gouges in the fertile earth as he rut into her like a wild animal. Her copper-gold hair haloed in the green stems of grass, cheeks flush, mouth hung open around gasps of his name. Her nipples were hard buds pressed against his chest, cushioned by the fullness of her breasts, and it only made him want her more. She slid across the ground and he had to leave muddy handprints across her body to bring her back to him so he could continue.

There was a pool fed by a waterfall near them, and they stumbled into it moments later. The splashing made her laugh, bell-bright, and she welcomed him back inside of her with a sigh. He drowned in her depths, groaning his pleasure at it all. Her teeth caught his shoulder, biting down harshly to keep herself stable against him as he fucked her. The pain inflicted made him roar, and he thrust all the harder into her.

Cullen grunted, biting his lip until he tasted the copper in his blood. His hand never stopped its erratic movements over his cock, and his release stole upon him, taking the breath out of his lungs with a punch. His spend splattered onto the floor, and it took him a long moment of gasping for him to find his breath again.

As soon as he did though, a fresh wave of the heat laid its hand across his chest and his cock strained back to hardness beneath his hand. Fantasies spun further out of his control and he staggered to his bed so he could have something solid underneath him lest his knees gave out.

He was lusting for a woman he had known for all of a brief day. Lusting in a way that he had not thought he was capable of – for he certainly had not had these manners of thoughts for any of the Avvar women from the other Holds. Not for their lack of trying to incite it in him, but all it took was an arranged marriage, and he was thrusting against the palm of his hand in a cruel mockery of intimacy.

The Gods were truly unknowable, for they in their wisdom, brought this Dalish Shaman to his Hold, and then filled him with a want for her unlike any he had ever felt. There could be no doubting that this union was blessed. His blood yearned for her and even as he dreamed of the morning when he would steal her, his cock strained for the moments _after_ the stealing, when he could truly test her mettle.

* * *

Aurum was a light sleeper.

Part of being one of only three mages in the clan was being constantly on the alert for any manner of danger, and that meant being very lightly in the Fade when in unknown territory. Any other time, Aurum would have been sleeping heavier, assured that her Grandmother and Mother both would be watching as well, letting them all sleep deeper. The three of them had never once been surprised by anything so small as a mouse coming into their camp unknown, and alone, each was more observant than that.

But this was not her Clan, and she was to be stolen. She had dressed in her formal attire, a many-layered robe that was designed more for the aesthetic than for practicality. She had a plan for it.

Her aravel swayed just the slightest bit, listing to the side and then righting itself almost immediately. Aurum was awake instantaneously. She was careful not to move, however, even as she heard the lock on her aravel’s door start to jiggle. The sound would have been nearly imperceptible to a human, but her long elvhen ears heard. Aurum had spent the night before preparing her aravel for the assault, and though she knew she would have to give in to him by the end of it all, she was prepared to make it one hell of a fight.

The lock gave, but the door did not open right away. Interesting.

Aurum was privately pleased. So far, his stealing was going remarkably well. He was being careful and had she been less than she was, he would have been doing _very_ well.

She pulled her blanket higher up on her shoulders, suppressed her grin, and waited.

And waited.

And wai-

The door flew open, and a pair of strong hands grabbed her around her ankles and _pulled_. Had this been what had awoken her, Cullen perhaps would have gotten further before meeting resistance. But Aurum had been awake, and as she was pulled, she reached up into the overhead beams of her aravel to grab her staff.

Her grip was tight, and as she was pulled out, she held it across the door, arresting her momentum. Her ankles were dropped, and in a stunningly fluid movement, she found her feet and rose up, staff still in hand. The lines of the aravel needed to be minded – they were strong, but Cullen did not seem to care. He rushed her, snapping lines in his way, and pinned her to the wall of her aravel, driving the air out of her lungs.

“You’re coming with me _right now_ , Aurum,” he growled.

She snarled, and tucked her chin down. Her magic hummed around her, and then snapped, angrily arcing into reality as a bolt of lightning. Cullen backed away, eyes wide with shock, and Aurum took the chance to flee, jumping over the side of her aravel and throwing a barrier spell over her shoulder.

Her heart pounded in her chest, and she chanced a glance backwards to see Cullen again. His golden eyes were flashing in the morning light, his mouth was drawn down into a snarl, and oh, Aurum’s heart sang. This man was, if nothing else, a predator like her. She smirked at him, and winked, even at the risk of getting caught for her moment of hubris.

But she had grown to her age learning how to escape, and while this was a game with a known outcome, she wanted to see what her soon-to-be-husband was truly capable of. If he was strong, the children would be strong. And strong children were something she had always prayed for. If she was going to marry this human, and bear half-breed children into her lineage, she wanted to make certain they would be _strong_.

Cullen charged after her. The chase was on.

His advantage was knowing the layout of the Hold better than her. Her advantage was being unknown to him. Her magic made the ground slick with ice, and treacherous around the sharp turns she took. Cullen kept pace, his boots digging in and keeping him from falling. She let him draw closer. Firetraps spat gouts of flame at him as he passed, and he shrugged off the threat without breaking stride. Closer, again.

Aurum turned heel and pulled lightning out of the sky in a dazzling display of power and might, blindingly bright and deadly. Before Cullen could bully through the display, Aurum rushed him, whipping her staff around at his head, slicing through the bolts of lightning. He ducked low underneath her strike, dropping down onto his stomach to avoid the wicked spearpoint at the end of her staff. Aurum threw a barrier down at him, pinning him in place just long enough for her to vault his prone form and dart back the other way, towards her aravel, and Cullen gave chase.

He stole a length of rope off a door he passed and quickly looped it into a lasso. Aurum only managed to see because she was rounding a corner and chanced a look at him.

When the rope looped around her staff, she did not even bother trying to engage in a tug-of-war. She threw the staff backwards and raced away, intending to get as far away as possible before the rope got free. The rope was bad news, and if she was not careful, it could make her game less entertaining. She wanted to be chased and this game was only just now starting. Luckily, Cullen abandoned the rope as she left her staff behind.

His people were waking, wandering around the hold, jeering and hollering as their Thane chased after his agile wife-to-be. Of course they all knew about the arrangement – gossip in the Hold was like life’s own water, and this was the _Thane’s_ woman. The Thane’s woman was strong and agile and quick, and the men and women of his Hold were very quick to offer suggestions on just what, exactly Cullen should do as soon as he had his little pretty elvhen woman in his room and tamed.

Aurum let him chase her ‘round the hold, laughing as he got close, and she danced out of his grasp. Cullen snarled at every turn, reaching for her, and coming tantalizingly close to grabbing her again. But _every time_ she would throw her head back and just manage to pull far away enough for him to not be able to do anything to her anymore. He’d feel his fingers brush along her skin, her clothes, her hair, and it made him want her more.

Because she was going to be his.

His and his alone.

She miss-stepped – perhaps purposefully, perhaps not – and Cullen was quick to react, reaching out to grab her by the wrist. Aurum staggered forward when he pulled, but to his shock, she was just as adept at hand-to-hand combat as magical combat, and with a nearly too-neat twist of her arm, Aurum broke free of his grasp and left him with an aching wrist of his own.

The heel of her palm smashed into his chest, driving him away from her. Cullen staggered, and Aurum took a heartbeat too long in admiring her work. He recovered and lunged back at her. Aurum stumbled away, and threw her magic up as a barrier between her and Cullen.

To her utter _shock_ , he shrugged through the barrier and came after her. She _felt_ her magic give way before him, and could not – did not – understand how he had done that. No one could do that. Deny her magic like that.

She backed away from him until her heel hit a wall, and found herself penned in by his arms on either side of her waist. Aurum swallowed heavily, still trying to rationalize just how the fuck he managed to block her magic out like that, and not really managing to come up with a good enough reason for it to be possible. He loomed over her, smirking down at her, looking entirely too much like a cat with penned-in prey for her liking.

“I have you now, little bird,” he purred down at her, his hands coming in to grab her waist and pull her flush to him.

Aurum came back to herself very quickly at that, and the snarl that painted itself across her face made him grin all the wider. Her response was a growl, lower in timbre than his, resonating deep in her chest.

He thought her a bird to be captured?

“Not. _Yet_ ,” was all she could bite out.

This time, her magic was not overwhelmed by whatever strange ability the Lion-Hearted possessed, and she flashed out of his grasp. Aurum reappeared behind him, wreathed in the Fade still, and shoved him forward, face-first into the wall. She used one of her forearms to bar the back of his neck, forcing his face into the hard wood and pinning him there. Her other hand slid down his side, ghosting across the front of his trousers to palm at his already-hard cock.

Cullen bit back a moan, turning his head so that his cheek was pressed to the rough wood of the wall. He stared over his shoulder and her arm at her, his golden eyes more black than she had seen them before. Even knowing it was a poor idea couldn’t stop Aurum from leaning in close to him as her fingers danced sinful letters across the seam and laces that kept his cock from feeling the chill morning air. That earned her a groan and a brief thrust of his hips against the promise of pleasure her hand gave him. She had the exquisite satisfaction of watching his eyes roll and close.

“I have _you_ now, little _cat_ ,” she growled, pushing him harder into the wall as her fingers danced frenetic passion across his cock.

This time, she got a full-throated moan out of her husband-to-be, and another jerk of his hips against her hand.

“As soon as I get out of this, as soon as I have you, I’m going to _ruin_ you, Aurum.”

She shivered. Desire, dark and needy rose up in her gut and Aurum enjoyed the feeling more than she would be willing to say. Cullen chuckled from his position beneath her. He ground his cock against her hand, moaning wantonly. It was a display, she knew it, entirely for her sake. His people were not around, it was only her and him, and he was _smirking_ at her as he drove his distractingly hard cock into her hand, over and over again.

Aurum had to think quickly or she was going to lose this battle-in-the-battle.

“Promises, _promises_ , Thane,” she purred, plucking at his laces, leaning forward just enough to nip at his ear.

“I – _ah_ – I always keep my – _nnn_ -oh! – promises,” Cullen grunted as she pulled his laces free and ran her fingers across the heated flesh she found beneath the leather of his trousers.

She hummed at him, her breath hot and heavy in his ear. He nearly whimpered, biting his lip, pressing his hips against her roving hand. Precome slicked her palm, and she chuckled.

“Mmm, I’m sure you do, Thane. I look forward to it, I really, **really** do.”

And with that, she was gone, releasing Cullen, and running away from him, trying to put distance between the two of them before he managed to recover. Her reward was a bout of florid cursing so exuberant it nearly made her stumble. Cullen was quick to retie his trouser-laces, and rushed after her again.

This time, she ran towards the Hold proper, her bare feet sending up small plumes of dust. Cullen was close behind her, on her heels, reaching for her, grabbing at her wrist, her hip, her hair, anything to keep her under control, bring her back to him. This was a stealing, a capture, a possession, but Aurum was still laughing, still dancing out of his grasp, taunting him.

As before, she led him on a merry dance through the hold, darting and twisting out of his hands, but this time, only just barely. She did not try and truly outstrip him in a footrace any longer. This time, though, she began to strip off the layers of clothing she wore, leaving them on the ground for Cullen to stumble over and get tangled in. Inch after tantalizing inch of her skin was revealed as she raced along, the tattoos she had earned in her life taunting him with how they bent and twisted across her skin.

Cullen snarled and surged forward the last few feet that separated the two of them.

He grabbed the back of her belt and pulled her sharply backwards into him. Aurum squealed, kicking her legs out and throwing an elbow backwards to try and get him to let her go, but Cullen dodged it and pulled her flush to him. Aurum gasped and struggled in vain, trying to pull away from him.

Cullen’s grip was like steel, however, and she could not get away, no matter how she tried. Wriggling did not work (though she could definitely feel the insistent press of his cock against her rear), nor did trying to throw a punch over her shoulder, or cursing at him. She tried to lean back and bite him, snapping her teeth in irritation when he avoided her fangs, and only stilled when Cullen leaned down to nip at the tip of her ear.

Aurum trembled, her knees went weak, and from behind her, Cullen laughed. He bit her ear again, tugging at it this time until Aurum went limp against him. She whimpered his name, struggling vainly against his grasp.

“Mine, now,” he hissed, pulling her tight to him.

She gasped, but said nothing.

“ _Say it_ ,” Cullen commanded, dipping his head down to bite at her neck.

Aurum wailed, struggling anew at his grasp. The Hold was gathering around them, chittering and gawking as the wild woman was finally captured by their Thane. Aurum blushed in embarrassment, trying to get Cullen’s mouth off her neck and his hands off her hips so she could get away. It was all fun and games until he was _doing this_ in _public_.

But Cullen was leaving love-marks down her neck, growling at her every time she struggled against his grip, and his hips had started grinding against her rear.

Aurum’s joy at the chase had faded and now she was struggling with the double-edged sword of passion and shyness. She could not tell if she wanted to flee or succumb to him. Wriggling got her nowhere, and her every attempt was met with refusal. He was going to hear her say it, or he was going to continue. Still, she bit her lip and tried to hold out against what he was asking. Submission did not come easily to the Dalish, especially when their submission had to come in public.

Cullen purred at her, pleased with the resistance, but not willing to take it as a final answer from his wife-to-be. He was going to get what he wanted from her. He let one of his hands drift from her hip, across her stomach and…slowly, _down_.

“Cullen!” she mewled, grabbing onto his wrist and pulling it away. “Cullen, _please_!”

“I want you to say it first.”

“I’m _yours_ , Cullen, _please_!”

He laughed, and with one very smooth movement, picked her up and slung her over his shoulder, to the raucous cheering of the Hold. Aurum screeched, and struggled for a moment against it, not liking her new position. Cullen laughed with his Hold and strode into his Hall, new bride over his shoulder. The next morning, there would be a marriage, but for now, the Thane had a new bride to tame.


	4. To Tame a Mage

The door to his bedchamber slammed shut behind them, and Cullen barred it for good measure. The heavy piece of wood dropped into place, and as soon as it was down, so was Aurum, back on her feet and before she could open her mouth to scold him for _carrying her_ like he had (in jest, in jest and pride), Cullen had her backed up against the door, his hands grabbing hers and pinning them above her head.

“I want to kiss you, Aurum,” he growled. “I won’t force you, I won’t, but-”

“ _Yes_ , Cullen! _Please!_ ” she moaned, arching her back, and turning her head to the side to show him all the marks he had already left on her skin. Her intent to scold was utterly forgotten at the promise of pleasure from him.

Cullen’s words were lost to him, and he descended on her mouth hungrily, kissing her like she was the only thing he had ever wanted to kiss in his life. Aurum opened her mouth to him, moaning obscenely as he pressed himself up against her. She wanted him, he wanted her, they were about to be married _anyway_ so it felt like the easiest thing to do to let him have his way.

He kissed her fiercely, biting her lip and tugging, just to hear her sweet whimpers. Her body rolled against his, undulating in a manner _most_ pleasing. Cullen growled at her, crushing her up against the door harshly. She whined plaintively into his mouth as he kissed her harder. It almost felt like he was trying to become one with her by sheer force alone. He made her feel small, weak, helpless, and there was a growing, yawning, gaping need in her that yearned for more of that feeling.

She had no idea where this new need to submit had come from, and it went against everything she had ever been taught…but it was so sweet to let herself be taken.

And Creators, did Cullen _take_.

He took her breath away, stealing it with feverish need, drinking it down greedily with every forceful kiss. Cullen moaned throatily into her mouth, parting her lips with his tongue so he could taste her response. Aurum had never experienced something like this kiss. He stroked her tongue with his own, and the sensuality of the tender press of his lips and sinuous twisting of his tongue against hers had her quickly forgetting all sense of propriety.

Cullen’s hands slid down her arms, over muscle and faded scars. He cupped the back of her neck with one hand, and let the other skim down her side. Aurum let her arms drop from where he had put them, reaching out to touch Cullen in return.

Her husband-to-be snarled at her and slammed her hands back into place. She gasped and stilled, even as he gentled his snarl with a quick kiss to her temple.

“They stay _there_ , Aurum. I want to know you first.”

“Cullen?”

“Keep your hands here. I want to know my wife. Then you can know me. And then we will know each other,” Cullen said with a growl, nipping her bottom lip.

She huffed, but nodded. She would allow this, out of curiosity. Aurum wanted to know whatever it was that Cullen meant by “know” and she was eager for elucidation on the matter. Again, his hands wandered down her sides, and this time, he plucked at the laces and clasps that kept her clothing in place. Her shirt gaped open, her trousers sagged, and his fingers felt out the curves of her flesh. Aurum sighed as he traced the delicate webbing of tattoos over her ribs.

Her ribs were sensitive enough as it was, and the process of being tattooed had been an exercise in restraint to not flinch or cry out. But to have someone actually trace them out, to press fingers against the skin had Aurum shivering.

“Your tattoos are beautiful, Aurum,” Cullen mumbled against her lips, pulling away just barely far enough for him to actually see her markings. “So beautiful. More than anything I’ve seen before, or will see again…Until I have you in my bed.”

She blushed scarlet, and turned to hide her face in her arm.

“Oh, no, none of that, my Aurum. I have to please the Spirits and the Gods. And speaking of your beauty pleases them, and _me_.”

Aurum did her best to hide anyway, all without moving her arms and still being pinned against the door.

“No, noooo, no Aurum,” Cullen purred. “You may worship others, but my Gods need you to hear this. They need you to know how I find you. I find you and I know you. You are beautiful, so very beautiful. There is nothing about you that I could imagine to be more perfect, and I will only find more perfection as I disrobe you, I am certain. But to take a moment now? And tell you how your eyes are bewitching, your-”

“C-Cullen! Please!!”

He laughed, and slowly, slowly, slipped his hand down her trousers, into her smalls. She tensed, nearly pulling her hands down to his shoulders, but she remembered his command, and kept them where they were. Cullen stopped and looked up at her, his brows furrowed.

“Do you want me to stop, Aurum? Tell me, and I promise I will stop.”

Aurum shook her head, her blush deepening. She did not know where to go, or what to say, or what to do, and for a long moment, she said nothing. Cullen’s hand retreated and he reached up to cradle her face in his hands. His golden eyes scorched her, and she could not look away from him. Not for the life of her could she look away. His gaze entranced her entirely and she stared at him, her mouth hanging open.

It took her too long to find her words again. Cullen was already starting to pull away, confusion touching the curve of his brow.

“N-No. I…I don’t want you to s-stop. I don’t. I just. You’re different.”

The look that crossed Cullen’s face was a joyful mix of arousal and anticipation and pleasure, and it took him no time at all to crowd up against her again.

“I should hope so. Because you are more stunning than any avvar woman I have ever seen. I had thought that it would take me time to grow used to such a different form than I had grown used to, I thought I would have to ask the Gods to bless me so that I could find you as beautiful as a husband should find his wife, but there was no need.”

Aurum squirmed. She delighted in the words as much as they made her tremble, and ached in equal parts for him to stop (perhaps they were in private now, but his voice carried, and he was not whispering as she was) and for him to _never_ stop. Vainly, she rubbed her thighs together, trying to relieve the growing pressure there, but Cullen was quick to stop that, pressing his own muscled thigh between her legs, holding her there, even as she wriggled fruitlessly against him.

“No, there was no need for me to ask the Gods and Spirits for anything. They filled me with a need so keen that I had to relieve myself of it, and even that did not abate my desire for you. I could only think of how you would look, how you would sound as I took you and made you mine. Not since I was first a man have I ever …Aurum you drove me _mad_.”

She whimpered and strained against him, jerking her hips against his thigh and then gasping as that sent arousal searing through her blood

“And now I’m going to do the same to you. I’m going to make you melt, Aurum,” he growled, pressing close to her as he went back to his dastardly work at getting her clothes out of his way.

He pulled her shirt up, chasing the planes of her stomach with his fingers, purring satisfaction at her as she pressed herself against his hands. Cullen nipped her ear and Aurum wailed again, trying to push herself up the wall, away from the overstimulation. He was quick to slide a hand down her stomach to cup her sex over her –

“Your smalls are dripping wet, Aurum,” Cullen hissed, more to himself than to her. “Spirits, _you’re_ so wet.”

The strangled sound that came out of Aurum’s throat ripped an answering one from Cullen. He stroked her through the thin material, delighting in her every passioned jerk of her hips, in the way she bit her lip to try and keep from being over-loud. But the best thing was that she stubbornly kept her hands held above her head, not bringing them down, despite herself.

Every strum of his fingers against her clothed sex gained him a gasped word or a hissed curse, and his hand was quickly as wet as her smalls. He could ignore the painful heat of his cock as long as he could keep his fingers drenched in her slickness. But he wanted to pull more sounds out of her, to touch her properly. He wanted to sink into her, lose himself in her depths.

“Such a _good_ woman, Aurum. What do you want?” he grunted, trying to remember words when it was very quickly becoming impossible to do so.

Her response came in how she hooked her leg around his hip and thrust herself against his fingers with a desperate moan. Cullen cursed and looked up to her, and then cursed again. Her purple and blue eyes were nearly black with need. His lips met hers with the force of a summer storm, and she yielded deliciously to him, opening her mouth to his tongue, melting against the door. Cullen moaned in tandem with her when he pushed her smalls to the side and let a finger slide inside of her.

“Gods, so wet. So wet and open for me, Aurum,” Cullen mumbled against her mouth.

“Yes, _yes_ ,” she babbled, rocking her hips against his hand.

He questioningly added a second finger, and Aurum moaned all the louder. Cullen kissed her again, drinking down her sounds of pleasure greedily. She was not screaming his name yet, and he knew the Hall was full of his people, waiting for that. He wanted to hear it, that was true. He wanted so much of her, and all at once, just having his fingers inside of her, just having his hand drenched with her sweetest nectar, just having her pinned up against the door to his bedroom wasn’t enough. He wanted more. Needed more.

“When I can finally take you properly, as my _wife_ , I’m going to spend hours like this, but right now, my people expect something of me.”

Aurum froze. Cullen smirked at her, and pulled her leg down from his hip. His hands found the hem of her pants and slowly pushed them down. She made a querulous sound as Cullen knelt down in front of her, cupping her bared ass to keep the rough wooden door from biting into her skin. Slowly, he leaned in and Aurum, even as she arched away from his questing mouth, sighed with anticipation.

He licked her thighs, running his tongue over the silvered stretch marks there, before moving closer to the crux of her legs, breathing in the heady scent of her want. She smelled divine and this was the _smell_ of his wife’s arousal. Cullen buried his face into the source of the smell, his tongue flicking out immediately to run the length of her pleasure-seam. Aurum’s hands dropped down almost immediately to rest on the back of his head.

He stopped, pulling away and staring up at her intently. She met his gaze with eyes glazed with lust overwhelming. Cullen had to swallow his traitorous leniency, and found his strength.

“ _Hands_ , Aurum.”

With a whimper, she put her hands back up above her head, and Cullen was surprised to see magic sparking at her fingertips.

“Cullen – Cullen give me a word. I need a word. Give me a release word, _please_. I need a word to wait for. I'll keep my hands up, I _promise_ , I just – I just need a word to bind the magic.”

Cullen stared as shimmering threads bound her wrists to the door. His gut tightened at the sight of such casual power. He had asked and she was working her best to oblige him. And all he had had to do was _ask_.

Spirits she was so perfect.

“Lion.”

“ _Vheraan_ ,” Aurum repeated reverently, throwing her head back and sighing her magic out to bind her back to the door.

He growled against her thigh, trying to restrain his want. His skin felt like it was mere seconds from peeling off of him and he was going to _explode_ if he didn’t do something, but all he could do was bury his face back between her legs and make her howl. And did she ever. His tongue made quick work, finding the pearl of her desire and stroking it purposefully.

Aurum gasped, stumbling over her words in Common before succumbing to her native tongue. A litany poured from her mouth in the decadent language of the Dalish, and Cullen had to wrap his hands around the back of her thighs to keep from stroking his achingly hard prick in time to her chanted words. Even without speaking much of her language, he could follow the thoughts behind her words by how her hips canted against his mouth and she hissed “ _Sathan_ ” every time he paused.

Stopping for any real amount of time, though, was truly impossible. Every flick of his tongue against her made her cry out and a fresh wave of her sweetest nectar flow down his chin and her thighs. He never wanted to stop, never wanted to be done with this moment. His knees ached and his shoulders did too, but Aurum was still keeping her hands above her head and rocking in time with the movements of his tongue.

If he strained, he could hear the cheers of his Hold start to echo through the Hall, but every time he tried to focus, Aurum would mewl and he would be very distracted all over again.

She bit her lip to try and keep from being too loud, trying to bite back the praises and exultations that scorched the back of her throat, but it was a losing battle. Cullen was determined to make her scream, and he was working very diligently towards that goal. With her magic keeping her wrists bound above her head, and Cullen firmly between her legs, she was helpless before the pleasure that burned her from the inside out. Words, eventually, failed her, and she was left gasping, trying to find the phrases that danced just on the other edge of her mind. None came to her tongue, and she was left to moan.

Still, Aurum tried to bite her sounds back.

And Cullen would have none of that.

Almost roughly, he pulled her hips away from the door, tilted them just _so_ , and sealed his lips over her pearl and suckled, not stopping even as Aurum found words enough to beg for leniency. Her back bowed and she struggled vainly against her own magic to get away from the overwhelming pleasure he was inflicting upon her. She bit her lip until she tasted blood and only then did she release it. Her mouth dropped open, Cullen suckled harder, gently pressing his teeth against her, and Aurum _howled_ his name as her release crashed through her.

Her magic crackled through the air, making his hair stand on end, and sending spinning fractals of light out from them both. Cullen surged to his feet, stripping out of his vest, and cupping the back of Aurum’s head with his hands as he kissed her again. He tasted the sound of his name in her mouth, dripping the sweetness of pleasure still.

His hips ground into hers impatiently, and she responded with a cry that could have pierced the Veil of the Lady of the Sky.

“ **Vheraan** ,” he growled, trying to remember how the word had sounded as it twisted off the tip of her tongue and mimic it.

He had done it right, it seemed, because the golden cuffs exploded outward in a spray of sparks, and Aurum’s hands were on him. She buried her fingers in his hair, tugging on his oft-untamed curls, pulling his head back so she could catch her breath.

Then she was on the offensive, pushing herself away from the door, pulling his hair harder until he backed away, pressing her suddenly too-sharp teeth into the tender flesh at the juncture of his neck and shoulder, growling like a feral creature.

Cullen stumbled backwards, unwilling to let her go. He grunted his relative displeasure of the discomfort of her teeth, but his calf hit the edge of his bed before he could warn her off truly. The two of them fell together, collapsing back onto his overlarge bed, and Aurum was quick to pull him bodily up onto it. He felt the push of magic guiding his movements, and when he was appropriately situated atop his rumpled bed, Aurum straddled him, her trousers and smalls abandoned in their push to the bed.

Cullen was definitely not complaining.

“ Se’av’an ea eolasa ara’lan, y Ar se’nuvena sael, emma’falon’saota ( _Your question is to know me, but I will **know** you first, husband mine._ )”

The dalish words were lost on Cullen, and Aurum knew it. But that was what she wanted. She wanted him uncertain of what she meant because it kept him off guard. There was a fire in her belly, a nigh-unquenchable thirst, but she tempered it with the need to _know_ him. More than just on this banal (but very pleasing) sexual level. She had to know if she could carry through with dedicating her life to him as she had done to the Creators.

Cullen stared at her, mouth hanging slack. His blood slicked her teeth, and his gaze barely even seemed to register that. Aurum caught his hands with hers, and gently pressed them against his bed. She needed him to be still, despite her tantalizing near-nudity. They could continue shortly. He had his fun, and she was burning for him, but she needed to _know_. Slowly, she dipped her head back down, pressing her lips gently to his.

“Syla sul’em…” she murmured against his lips. “Breathe for me, Cullen. I want to know my husband.”

He exhaled, shakily, and then firmly, breathing out everything in a huff.

Her magic, strong and true and trained through the centuries available only to one who can walk the years in the fade in a single night, wrapped itself in his inhalation, flowing easily into his lungs with air that smelled of her arousal and his. He stiffened beneath her, arching up against her, feeling the intrusion, but she soothed him with a kiss and a gentle warm pulse of her magic within him.

“A-ahurum?”

“Syla, syla, emma’falon’saota. Syla,” she soothed, her magic pulsing warmth through him again.

Cullen’s eyes went glassy and she slowly released his hands. They did not move from where she had first pinned them, leaving her free to roam his body with her hands. She touched him, and her magic reached through him to touch her back. He keened beneath her, unused to such a feeling, but did not seek to move her away from him. He trembled, shocked at whatever magic she was working in him.

Fear touched him for but a moment, and he thought that, perhaps, she meant him ill, but the warmth inside of him pulsed again, muffling the thoughts he had until he was limp and pliable beneath her. She meant him no harm. No more than he had meant with her. And Spirits, she was so beautiful above him, her purple eyes blazing blue around the edges.

“Listen, Cullen. Listen,” she whispered, and he did.

A song danced in her movements, taunting him with melodies he could barely hear at all. But her every touch made a new sound chime out, and he soon ached for her to do _more_ than simply press her fingers here, or there, or _there_. The simple touches were simple sounds, and the warmth that pooled in his stomach only grew ever heavier and ever more insistent the more she caressed him.

When Aurum kissed him, the song **burst** through his head, and the warmth exploded into a conflagration of heat. He still could not move, nor did he want to, but an ungodly sound ripped from his throat as she kissed him as hard as he had kissed her up against his door. Her nails rasping down his chest sent the reverberations of drums through the song, and heat trailed in their wake. She toyed at the waist-hem of his trousers, and the drums solidified into a steady beat that pounded in time with their hearts.

His heart’s beating was hers, he knew that in some sort of intrinsic way that he would never, truly, be able to explain. Whatever was happening here, this was nothing any Avvar could ever hope to feel but with her.

Her teeth caught his lip and it was the crash of the great brass cymbals he had seen at one of the Holds he had fostered at when he was younger.

Her tongue tasted his and that was the sweet wail of the strange stringed instrument the Orlesian fool had brought with him in a vain attempt to gain entrance and acceptance into his Hold.

Her fingers did away with the laces on his trousers, and her hand encircled his cock and that was – that was – that was more sound, more music than he had ever had the opportunity to hear. It was utterly indescribable to him. There were too many sounds all at once, too many instruments singing their songs together that he could not begin to pick apart what instruments were there and which were not. He could not think to try and remember their song because she was _kissing_ him again and it was the brass cymbals and then it was the wailing of the strings, and the beating of the drums.

And then it was all of them together, as she slowly, slowly made them one, sliding down onto him.

It was her song with his. The songs were united only by the drum’s beating, for it was their hearts and they beat together. There was his song, the unknowable mix of all that he had experienced, all sound and song he had known from a babe to adulthood, all that he had been and would be. And there was hers – a song that he could not know, but now could never _not_ know. It did not matter if he could never describe what it was, or dictate the notes to a musician, it did not matter because he would always know that song.

His song was familiar, even if it was new to his ears.

Hers was anything but, but it was all that he could think of.

Everything within them sang together, every sensation amplified one song over the other, every lazy movement of their hips sent the drums to fluttering or the strings to stuttering. He remembered his arms, and reached to cup one of her breasts, running a thumb over her dusky-pink pebbled nipple. Her song chimed with a chorus of bells, and he heard her sigh his name. He brushed a hand across her hip, and he heard the sonorous rumble of an instrument he could not name echo the movement.

She rode him like a prized animal, slow and sure of her movements atop him, never once disturbed by the sudden movements he made as he discovered her song and his. The sight of his blood on her teeth was a brief, drum-stopping beat, and then the revelation in her song that she meant no harm by it made the drums beat louder, and stronger together.

He nearly lost himself in the songs, throwing his head back and letting her have her way with him. He lost track of his breath, but when she leaned back down over him, her breath ghosting across his lips, Cullen remembered. And he breathed her in again. He felt like he was full to bursting, overwhelmed by the song, carried away by it, suffocating beneath its overwhelming presence in his mind, but Aurum kept him centered. He could not escape her presence, her touch, the way her magic in him made him feel, and desperately, Cullen tried to cling to himself, tried to, tried to, tried to, _tried_ to.

“Sathan, Cullen. Please. Let go. I will keep you safe. Let go.”

Her voice carried the song in it, and he shuddered.

“Let. Go.”

He did.

He surrendered utterly to the music, and all at once, his song was hers and hers was his and there was no distinction between the two. It was nothing he had heard before, nothing he could comprehend, nothing he had the words to describe. But it was them. The song was _them_. Every potential, every possibility, it was _there_. This was their song. Theirs, and theirs alone. Nothing else in the entire world could ever match it.

Cullen did not know when his release came upon him, or when desire blistered him to completion. All he knew was her song and his, melded together. Physical sensation was meaningless compared to what he was feeling, but she sighed atop him, and leaned down over him to press a kiss to his lips.

He responded slowly, not really aware right then, kissing her back with a gentle tenderness. He reached up to pull her close, and Aurum obliged him with a soft laugh. She was still seated neatly on his cock, and Cullen groaned at the feeling as _feeling_ came back to him. The song faded out completely, and he was left, staring up at his wife-to-be. Dully, he heard the cheering of his Hold, all of them rejoicing that he and his stolen wife were so well suited as to be crying out in passion for each other as soon as they had the chance to be alone.

But that did not matter as much as Aurum’s panting in his ear, and the way her fingers traced over the reddened marks from her fingernails, and the way she murmured his name with reverence. Cullen reached up to her, encircling her in his arms, and gently, carefully, turned her onto her side, without letting his cock slide from inside of her.

Aurum curled into him, humming contentedly beneath her breath. Cullen pulled furs over them both, and nuzzled his face into the crook of her neck. She sighed and kissed his temple.

“Satisfied, wife?” he mumbled, pulling her tight to him, not wanting to be parted from her just yet.

“Are you? Do you know me well enough?” came Aurum’s tired response.

“What was the song?”

She laughed.

“Your song. My song. Our song. I wanted to know them all. So I did.”

Cullen was not satisfied.

“But how?”

“I am the Fade-Singer, Cullen. My magic is one of song and knowing. I know you, I know your song. Your song and your heart are known to me. All else fades before that. I know you. I know much of you, but I still have many more things to learn. But I can say for a fact, Cullen Lion-Hearted, that I would not be opposed to marriage with you. Not at any sort.”

His breath caught in his throat and he looked to her with his golden eyes wide.

“What?”

“I am not opposed to marrying you, in any manner. Your song…completes mine. I like it,” Aurum explained, twining her fingers with his and pulling him closer to her.

He went willingly, curling a leg over her hip to stay close to her. Aurum made a curious purring sound under her breath, and Cullen echoed it, his a deep-throated purr that rumbled through them both. Aurum shuddered and pulled him closer to her, then stilled. Her breathing evened out, she relaxed, and Cullen very quickly had an armful of sleeping elf-woman. A sleeping elf woman was very quickly joined by a sleeping human man.


	5. To Appreciate the Finer Points

Some time later, there was a rude knock at the door, and without moving anything other than her arm, Aurum summoned the force of will to throw one of Cullen’s boots at the door with a burst of magic. There was an answering laugh, and the door opened regardless. The locking post had been moved by magic, because of course it had been.

Cullen groaned at length and sat up with a curse.

“This better be _good_ , Dorian,” he growled when he saw just who it was who was disrupting the two of them.

“I figured you would like some food, and your near-wife would like some explanation on what she is expected to do tomorrow, yes?”

Aurum didn’t even sit up, just curled deeper beneath the furs Cullen had on his bed. She did not need to pay attention. Knots would be tied, and she would sing. They would be bound together, and start living as wife and husband. They were then to be married as Dalish were, and that would mean that they would need to be married permanently by the counting of both of their people, so it was not something she was overly concerned with.

She was, however, very concerned with sleeping some more. Sleeping, and then waking and being mounted by her soon-to-be husband. Her skin was not always so furless and pale, and while she was still herself, her changing skins left her with a deep, deep need to have family and protect family and keep her family safe. The skins only amplified what was there, and her Clan had a legacy that burned in her. Protect. Family and protection.

Aurum would have been the greatest Keeper to ever rise amongst the elvhen.

But she was to marry for the good of her people, instead. So she would. And it was very easy to turn her attention from being a Keeper and protector of a Clan to being wife and mother to a Clan and Hold. She was always to find joy in her duty, and this time, it was not difficult.

Cullen prodded her.

“You should get up, Aurum.”

“You should go _down_ again, Cullen,” she grumbled instead, to Cullen’s great pleasure. Dorian groaned.

Eventually, she sat up, not bothering to try and cover her bared chest. Nudity never bothered her. And her tattoos counted as much as clothing to her as anything else did. The Creators made them, and bodies were just bodies. Dorian tutted and looked away from her, gesturing with a hand to Cullen, who pulled one of the furs up and held it in place to cover his almost-wife’s breasts. He turned to press a quick kiss to her ear, and Aurum swatted his nose with the very tip of her ear as he pulled away.

He chuckled, and pulled her closer to him, kissing her ear, and neck, and cheek. Aurum was about to turn and return the affections, but Dorian cleared his throat.

“If you are quite done trying to conceive a pup already, we should talk. Aurum, you will have the entire evening to knot your rope as you see fit. Every knot Cullen undoes is a year. Pick a song, and sing it.”

“I don’t see why you needed to interrupt the aforementioned pup-making to tell me those three sentences, Augur Dorian.”

He stared at her, a frown beneath his moustache.

“There is more to it than just-”

“Well then be _quick_ , Augur Dorian. There are pups to be made, are there not?” Aurum said disinterestedly, leaning on Cullen, who chuckled.

“He’s trying to be helpful, Aurum.”

“Quite,” Dorian sniffed.

Aurum whined, and fell backwards, dragging Cullen down with her. He laughed and shrugged at Dorian, who rolled his eyes and dragged a chair to the side of the bed. Dorian sat, petulantly, staring down Aurum, who was content to curl into Cullen’s side beneath the cover of the furs. Dorian began talking, and Aurum listened with some small amount of interest, content beneath the furs.

Idly, she reached for Cullen, who was still sitting halfway up, propped up by pillows and the rest of the furs. Her fingers traced the lines of his hip with interest. The darkness of the underneath of the furs did not bother her. She could see better than most in the dark, and curled next to her naked Cullen, there was _plenty_ to see.

“Cullen, be careful while you unknot the ropes, as there are-”

That was not anything she needed to listen to, and she let her hands roam a little more, across his hips, down, until she was fondling his suddenly hardening cock. Aurum felt like she should be ashamed of this, that she shouldn’t want to feel his cock hardening beneath her hand while there was another in the room, but…there was a fire in her belly and she wished to slake it.

Cullen’s breath hitched for the barest moment before he responded to Dorian, and he carefully piled more blankets into his lap as he nodded along to his Augur’s words. If his wife was so bold – if she wanted him this badly, he was going to graciously allow it.

Her fingers became more and more emboldened, and Cullen was very very very very careful to keep his voice even and his breath in check. Aurum’s fingers were still questioning in their quest across his heated skin, and he bit the inside of his cheek.

Beneath the furs, Aurum pressed her lips to his ribs and slowly, slowly stroked his engorged prick, marveling in the feeling of it in her hand, how it was _hot_ , so _hot_. Humans had such high body temperatures compared to the elvhen, and to feel his cock nearly burning her hand was an exquisite new sensation. He was hard in her hand and she remembered how he had felt inside of her and she had to bite his skin to keep herself quiet.

Cullen flinched, Dorian gave him an odd look, and Cullen gestured for his Augur to continue. Dorian did, but the odd look did not fade, though it certainly did not keep Dorian from continuing his tirade.

Aurum kissed the small mark she had left on his ribs, licking it apologetically when she realized some small drops of blood had oozed out. Carefully, carefully, she stroked him, her fingertips barely brushing over his heated flesh, tracing dalish patterns across him. His hips made a short, jerky movement against her hand, and Aurum smiled against his skin.

Without knowing how much the augur could sense, she did not want to risk trying to summon magic with him so near. This was meant to be secretive, and while she knew the augur more than likely could tell something was amiss, he was still talking, unperturbed, and Cullen was responding to whatever questions or comments Dorian was making, which left Aurum to her own devious devices. She pressed her tongue to his side, hiding her smile beneath the furs as she continued her soft torture.

Cullen tried to adjust how he was sitting in his bed to keep Aurum from doing anything too shameful while his friend and Augur was present, but no matter how he moved, she moved with him, her mouth on his ribs, and her fingers flitting about his cock. There was not enough of her slickness remaining for the drag of her fingers to be without the pull of friction. It was _almost_ painful, almost too rough, but her hand retreated from his cock before it was too much.

The brief moments of clarity let him look Dorian in the eye and answer the last question Dorian had for him without worrying for his voice breaking. Dorian looked down to the lump beneath the furs that was Aurum, a single well-maintained eyebrow arched. Cullen shrugged and licked his lips.

“Aurum, I need to have a word with you,” Dorian said, reaching out to prod the nearest part of what he assumed was her body.

Aurum groaned, but wiggled until her head popped up over the edge of the furs, looking to Dorian with a frown. She curled herself around Cullen, nuzzling his neck affectionately, wrapping an arm around his waist, and then turning her head back to Dorian, seating him with the full brunt of her attention.

“Yes, Augur Dorian?”

He wanted to further explain the intricacies of the rather simple ceremony and what to expect, and to be fair, Aurum did listen intently to what he was saying, but her hands roved beneath the furs on the bed. Cullen moved to stop her, briefly considering calling more attention to her movements than she was, just to get her to, perhaps, cease long enough for Dorian to speak of their marriage at length. But he froze when her hand, slick and wet, ghosted across his cock once again.

Swallowing the knot in his throat, he looked to Aurum, who was smiling and nodding along to whatever it was that Dorian was still talking about. His near-wife was calmly, coolly, conversing and showed no outward indication that she was doing _anything_ particularly naughty, but she was. Gods save him, she was going to drive him up the wall.

Her hand was slick with her arousal, and she stroked him languidly. He wanted her. He wanted her beneath him and wailing his name again. Dorian was in the way, Dorian was keeping him from his woman, Dorian was doing his job but good Gods, could Dorian be done because her hand was –

“Aurum, dear, I understand that the Thane is attractive, but can you please get your hand off his cock and pay attention?”

“Ahnsul tel ga’ta?” she murmured into Cullen’s ear. “Why not both?”

Dorian sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“I had heard that the Dalish were affectionate with their bonded ones, but this is a bit ridiculous, don’t you think?”

“How so?”

“I’m still _here_ , for one.”

Aurum’s hand left him, only to cover her mouth while she laughed. Cullen stared at her in adoration, the sound making his heart ache with fullness.

“You aren’t going to like the Dalish wedding then, Augur Dorian.”

Dorian narrowed his eyes at her, calculating what she was saying very carefully before tightly asking: “What do you mean?”

“The ceremony is very publically…affectionate, we shall say. The two are one, and acknowledged as such by the entire Clan, or Clans if they are marrying outside of their Clan. There is a reason for the permanence in our marriages that yours lack. It is not so simple as singing and undoing some knots.”

Cullen’s heart skipped at the suggested promise in her words. Nervously, he looked between Dorian and Aurum, trying to gauge both their reactions. His cock was throbbing with want of her. He wanted her right now and it was getting to be very difficult to not turn her onto her stomach and rut into her anew.

“You mean-” Dorian started, but found himself unable to continue.

“Ritual orgy, yes. With the couple to be married as the centerpoint. It’s very lovely, actually. I’ve been to a few. Obviously, I was never the, ah, ‘main event’, but that’s what will be expected. There will probably be some manner of singing, and for a surety, knots to undo, but that’s quite a bit different, I would say.”

“A bit.”

Aurum laughed again and curled closer to Cullen, who accepted her movement easily, wrapping his arms around her naked body, trying to behave for the little while longer before Dorian left and he could make her howl his name again.

“Aurum, you…do mean that there will be a bunch of elves coming here in a month to have sex?”

 _“Ritual_ sex, actually, and your Hold is of course invited to join in. But yes. That’s the gist of it.”

Dorian stared, as did Cullen, but for two completely different reasons. One was considering the logistics of how he would consult the spirits as to the appropriateness of such things, and what sacrifices would be needed to be made and if this would count as a fertility festival and he really did need more information because if this was their second wedding ceremony, it needed to be treated with the same respect and solemnity as the first, despite how different the two we. The other was waiting as patiently as he could for the first to leave so he could go back to his worship of his new wife. Soon-to-be wife.

He wanted her now. Right now.

One of his hands slid down her back to cup her ass as she and Dorian continued talking back and forth, hashing out some of the preliminary details of the second marriage ceremony. Every detail made him ache all the more.

“No, the month is so there is time to prepare the traditional drinks, food, and gather the Clans interested in coming to visit and observe or participate.”

“And about how many should we expect?”

“No more than you can handle. The Clans are very contentious about those sorts of things. It would be very rude to overbear another Clan, or Hold, in this case. They will be very aware of what is and isn’t good for your people and mine.”

Slowly, he worked his hand lower and lower, until Aurum was practically sitting on his palm, leaving his fingers free to slowly stroke her slick slit. Cullen’s grin widened when Aurum sighed and smacked him on the cheek with her ear. He turned quickly to catch the tip of it in between his teeth.

Aurum gasped and melted into Cullen’s side, her eyes rolling up in submission. Cullen growled lowly at the sight, plunging his fingers into her. Her mewl, she tried to bite back as he curled his fingers, and Cullen purred in response. Dorian scoffed and got up to leave.

“When the two of you are _quite_ done, I’ll have Aurum escorted to the women’s holt and she can begin tying her knots. Make sure the two of you get something to eat, its near midday and no, Cullen,” Dorian started, holding a hand up to interrupt the crass comment he knew was about to come from the Thane’s mouth, “eating _her_ out does not count as having eaten.”

Cullen chuckled and waved Dorian away with his free hand. The Augur made a half-sound of disgust under his breath and shook his head.

“I swear, you’re worse than a youngling with a new toy, Thane.”

Cullen waved Dorian away with more force, focused still on Aurum and the sweet sounds she made as he slowly, slowly, undulated his fingers inside of her. Dorian closed the door behind him and Cullen was on her within moments. He had her at his mercy, turning on her, pressing her down against the furs of his bed, slanting his mouth across hers. Aurum’s sweetest sounds came as he stroked her innermost walls and nipped at her plump lips.

His cock was heavy and hard against her thigh, and Aurum arched herself against Cullen’s chest, desperate to feel more of him.

“Daring woman mine, you taunted me in front of my Augur. My _friend_. Couldn’t keep your hands off me that long, could you?” Cullen growled into her ear, licking the shell of it.

She trembled, reaching for him, pulling him flush against her. He rolled his hips against hers, his cock’s head pressing only briefly against her entrance. Aurum gasped and tried to move, tried to jerk her hips so that she could _feel_ him, and Cullen moved away. She whined, pulling on his arms, straining against him. Aurum wanted him, and he was playing hard to get, which was, by no means, fair.

“Even now, you can’t wait for me?”

“Telal! Ar telal, sathan, sa _than_!” ( _No, can’t! I can’t, please, please!_ )

The Dalish words sounded like honey on her tongue and Cullen did so want to hear more. He knew none of the words yet, but he could learn, for her he could learn.

“You’ll have to repeat that, sweetling.”

Her lips curled over pointed teeth and she dug her fingers into the meat of his arms, nearly painfully. There would be bruises in the shape of her petite fingertips by the time this was done. Cullen looked forward to wearing them.

“Fuck me, Cullen! I ache for the feeling of your cock, I thirst for your cum, please, I cannot wait! Fuck. ME!” she howled, not bothering with any manner of attempt to quiet herself.

From outside Cullen's room, there was a hoot, a cheer from those gathered who were still waiting around to hear their Thane tame his bride. How quickly she turned to wanton desperation from her firey battle-heat. Their Thane was truly a magnificent warrior, and certainly the Gods and Spirits both smiled upon this arrangements, because her pleasured wailing was only just barely louder than his.


	6. To Revel in Togetherness

Cullen sank his teeth into her shoulder, holding her steady as he fucked her. He had tupped women before, he had fucked women before, but this was different. Aurum was different and he felt more, wanted more, ached for more from her already. She was obscenely wet, and he had never felt a woman so wanting of him as to drip her arousal onto his bed-furs. She did not try to reach for any of her magic, instead rolling her hips in time with him as she let him bite her again and again.

The deep purpling bruises that appeared on her tattooed flesh awoke something deeply primal in Cullen. These were _his_ marks. His teeth, his tongue, his mouth had put them there, and she allowed it all with great gushing words and further wetness slicking his cock. She _encouraged_ the marks with moans of approval every time he moved his mouth to another part of her neck or shoulder.

His marks.

“No one but me, none but me,” he growled, possessive and dark and demanding against each of the bruises his mouth left behind. The words came unbidden, from a place deep within his chest. No shaman, no Spirit, no God had ever elicited anything like this in him, but Aurum, in his bed, was all it took.

Her skin.

“None but _I_ , none but you. Mine and mine and mine again,” she hissed back, twisting so that she could bite him in return, leaving her own stippling of bruises across his collarbones. Her words twisted into Dalish and oaths beyond any she had ever considered making poured from her mouth in a litany of promises.

Cullen roared, thrusting deeper, harder, harsher into her, not willing or wanting to dislodge that sweet mouth from his skin. He did not need to understand her words to know the meanings of what she said. The Gods wanted this for them, and they would never part what the Gods had brought together.

His wife.

 _Gods_ , his _wife_. She was to be his wife and that entailed more than just simple fucking, simply enjoying another being’s body. She was his wife, he was her husband, and that was how the world now worked for the both of them. Together. Blood scented the air.

Her husband.

Her magic, wild and unrestrained in the way it seemed only Cullen could make it, cracked through the air around them both. She moaned, long and low, overwhelmed with everything she was feeling. Her magic was a part of her and it was as overjoyed and overstimulated as the rest of her was.

His every thrust broke her world into shattered pieces, and rebuilt it in his form and image. It was a truly overwhelming sensation to have everything stripped away by the cock of a shemlen barbarian, but Aurum found herself less and less worried about that. He brought pleasure to all of her senses unlike anything she had ever dared allow herself feel before.

One of his arms slid up her back, forcing her to arch against him to allow the movement. He twined his finger through her hair and _pulled_ , yanking her mouth from his skin so he could bite the suddenly presented column of her throat. Aurum yowled, unused to such forced submission, but he pulled all the harder on her hair, and ground his cock deeper into her. Her hands dropped from his arms, and she scrabbled for purchase on his furs.

There was just so much of him – in her, around her, over her, under her. Overwhelmed no longer described how either of them felt.

They were drowning with breath still in their lungs, suffocating in the other's presence and gladly falling into their desperation. There did not seem to be a way for either of them to get enough of the other. Every sensation demanded the next, every lick of pleasure's fire made them crave the burn, and no matter how they moved with each other, it never satisfied the desert of need in their chests.

Cullen was snarling Avvish against her bruised throat, his fingers working hard, gripping her hip, and pulling her hair in time with his thrusts to keep her beneath him the way he wanted her. Aurum lost her words at the guttteral sounds that came from him.

Avvish was so different than Dalish, rough where Dalish was soft, harsh where her language was smooth, but to have it grit out from between clenched teeth against her skin made her tremble. The words sounded like possession, like need and want and the fury borne from not having enough, never having enough. Her surrender, something she had never given, never desired to give, came so easily to those words that she found herself sobbing his name and platitudes anew.

He was to be her husband for the entirety of her life. She was to be his wife.

Once, twice, thrice, was never enough to slake their lust for the other. There was not enough of the other and still all at once too much. Cullen was bigger than her, muscled and intimidating, larger and overwhelming, but her hands on his chest made him feel small. She carried a storm in her chest, a magic unrelenting and powerful, and he could feel it against his skin when he touched her. That alone was enough to make him feel small, but the way she mewled his name, and the storm in her echoed it - _that_ made him feel large all over again.

He could hold her down, bite her throat, pull her hair, but there was not a single moment of this that he did not realize that if she truly did not want him, if she wanted this to stop, she would only have to flex that power in her and he could do nothing against it. She could, but she _didn’t_.

Here she was, her head thrown back, panting his name, his marks littering her neck and shoulder and chest as he dug his fingers into her hips and fucked her. She allowed him control and he took it greedily, with adoration and respect blooming in his chest. She allowed him this, and he wanted more. To give her more, to take more, to have it all.

Aurum gasped his name softly from beneath him, and that was all it took to turn the maelstrom of need in him into a singular moment of pleasure so acute it felt as ifs he had burned him with her magic. He collapsed onto her, just barely managing to catch himself before an unfortunate coital headbutt occurred, his release making his ability to say or do anything more profound than find her mouth and kiss it gently vanish. She sighed against his lips, and he heard the whisper of a song again. Her song. His song?

It didn’t matter.

The merest suggestion of it had him shuddering, and he shakily whispered her name. She smiled and kissed him gently. Belatedly, Cullen realized that he was not entirely certain if she had found her own pleasure in what they were doing. For a surety, he could assume as much from how she had been calling his name alongside those of her gods, but he did not know for certain if she had, and there was a part of him that could not let that uncertainty stand.

So he kissed her, sweetly and slowly, easing his cock from inside of her, trying to not whimper as they were parted. Aurum had no such compunction and whined plaintively as he withdrew. If he had had any sort of doubt as to whether or not he was in the right to plan the way he was, that rather quickly decided him on his course of action.

He released his grip on her hair, pressed gentle kisses against the multitudes of bruises across her throat, and slowly, slowly, slid his hand down her side until he had his fingers pressing up against her dripping entrance. Aurum purred encouragement at him for the consideration, and within moments, she was writhing on his furs, moaning his name, as his fingers worked their way into her, stroking and pressing every overstimulated nerve in her cunt.

Cullen’s thumb rolled over her clit and she seized up beneath him, her breath catching in her throat. He pushed himself up over her, watching intently. Her eyes were shut and she had her lip in between her teeth. Cullen couldn’t think of anything more arousing than that sight right there. Her body undulated in time with the slow roll of his fingers inside of her, and her hands fisted in the furs by her shoulders.

Her hair was a mess, her lips were plump and red from the kissing and biting, and her neck was a motley of bruises in the shape of his mouth. The only thing that made it any more enticing than it already was was the feeling of her arousal soaking his hand and the way her blush painted her chest pink and the now-near-familiar press of the weight of her magic against his skin. She was smiling through the pleasure, her eyes rolling.

Spirits save him, he could truly love this woman.

When Aurum’s voice reached a crescendo, when her magic cracked and snapped, and Cullen rolled her pearl beneath his thumb one last time, she came with a cry that pierced his heart.

He gathered her into his arms, curling into her, pulling her onto her side as she rode out the tail-end of her own pleasure. She trembled against him, twining herself around him like the roots of the ironbark tree he knew her people were fond of.

“Cullen,” she sighed happily into his neck.

“Aurum,” he purred at her, nuzzling her hair.

She huffed at him, pulled him closer and was mere moments from falling into slumber when she heard a knock at the door again.

Cullen laughed at her, and tried to, unsuccessfully, pry her away. She was very strong, in her own right, and he had just spent much of his energy making sure his soon-to-be-wife, and he did not necessarily actually want her to remove herself from him.

“That’ll be the women, they’ll want you to tie your knots.”

“They can wait.”

“That sounds appealing, very much so, but Aurum, please, the knots should be tied, and soon.”

She growled as he tried to pull away, holding him all the tighter and burying her face in his equally as marked neck. Her kisses there quickly turned to nips and bites and Cullen was moaning obscenely loud because that felt _good_.

The knocking grew louder.

“Au… _rum_ , please, they not going to stop. They’re _very_ persistent and, uh, they will come in, the door isn’t locked and – _ah_!”

She bit his ear, rolling her hips against his, whining and laughing in equal turns as Cullen warred with his arousal.

“They will come _in_ , Aurum!” he protested as she twined her fingers in his hair.

“What about what you just learned about my people tells you that I care about that?”

Cullen laughed breathlessly, trying to swallow down the rising urge to take Aurum again, observers be damned, but…she had to go.

“Fair enough. But…uhn, please, go with them, Aurum. It’s important.”

She whined, long and plaintively, trying to wriggle closer to him. He did not want to admit how close it came to actually working on him, but she was _very_ distracting and his mind, ever unhelpful, provided plenty of reasons why he shouldn’t urge her to get out of his bed. Still, he knew it had to be done, just so that their marriage on the morrow would be considered in good standing. He had conquered his wife-to-be, and the whole Hold knew it. She had screamed his name and certainly even Dorian had felt her power roll and crash in time with the way he had made her feel.

Ah, that thought did not help either.

Cullen shook his head, and helped Aurum extricate herself from him. She huffed in mock anger and left his bed. He watched her get dressed, not once trying to disguise his rapt interest in how she moved, and how her body was put together. If Dorian told him that the Gods themselves had made her with their own hands, and set her upon this earth solely to please him, he could believe that without hesitation. Every move she made had him biting his lip, and when she bent to find her own trousers, she made certain her back was to him, so that he could watch her ass with unabashed interest.

Gods, she was beautiful.

Aurum smirked at him, and he shrugged. Without doing anything to hide the marks on her skin, or even bothering to fix her mussed hair, his nearly-wife looked down to where her tunic lay near his vest, shrugged, and pulled his vest on instead of her own shirt. Carefully, and quickly, she tied it in place, covering her naked breasts with his clothing. Before Cullen could get out of bed, before he could grab her and pin her up against his door again and make her _scream_ for her daring assumption she could just wear his clothing in the Hold without there being certain repercussions, but she was already opening the door and passing through it to the tittering of the women on the other side.

The door closed and he was very certain he heard her laugh with the other women as well.

Oh, when they were married, he was going to take great, great pleasure in making certain she was never too far from him.

* * *

“You are Aurum, then?”

Aurum’s brows rose high on her forehead at the question, and she looked up from the length of rope in her lap. The asker bore passing resemblance to Cullen, in a way.

“Yes.”

“I am Mia. His elder sister.”

Aurum blinked. Cullen hadn’t mentioned siblings of any sort. Not that she had been around his mouth too often without them being…involved. Amorously. His mouth – mm, his mouth hadn’t managed to do much talking.

“Well met, Mia.”

“He’s my little brother, you understand? I’m not going to let some-”

Aurum’s temper flared at the tone and she was all at once in Mia’s space. She had nearly a full head of height on the other woman, and when her lips curled back, her teeth were long and sharp again.

“I am not _here_ to harm him, Mia. I am here to do service to my Clan. I am in a place far from my own family, and I cannot return to them. I am here, in a foreign place, to be married to a man who I do not know. And you wish to warn me that I should do him no harm?”

She gestured to the aching bruises rising on her skin, the mottled marks from her brother’s mouth, the ovoid deep purple ones from his fingers holding too tight to her. Mia’s gaze softened, and she stepped away from Aurum. Aurum did not move, nor did she relax her posture. She waited, still and commanding, until Mia spoke again.

“I am…sorry.”

“Of course you’re not. I’m a strange woman marrying your younger brother. It’s understandable. I won’t stand for being disrespected though. We are bound by duty. I will not harm your brother. I will not stand for being harmed by him, either.”

Mia’s gaze dropped down to the bruises that littered Aurum’s neck. Aurum grinned, tilting her head back to show off the full extent of what Cullen had done to her neck.

“These don’t count, sister-near. I like them. And oh, you should _see_ your brother,” Aurum purred.

Mia made a face, but said nothing more, stepping back to allow for the elders of the Hold to begin instruction on what, exactly, Aurum was to be doing in preparation for the marriage. This time, Aurum listened intently, intensely, her gaze never straying as she absorbed the knowledge of the Hold as it related to marriages. She had already made her decision – they had been asked for much, in their marriage, and Cullen had signed over her entire life to him by asking for a marriage in her own people. She would not be a dishonored wife.

But that came after tying the knots, and knots did she tie. Her fingers paid proper homage to June and she remembered the year she spent in acknowledgement of the crafting God.

One long piece of rope, and many small, intricate knots later, Aurum was done. Carefully, she tied the last knot – tight enough to be a challenge, but loose enough to be obvious as the place to start.

She had spent hours on the knotwork, all the while listening to the women of the Hold spin stories about their own histories, and Spirits, and Gods. Aurum had been silent for much of it, not wanting to infringe upon their moments with commentation on her own religious beliefs, though she knew it was a conversation that would eventually come into being. It was an inevitability, really. Eventually, there would be a discussion on the matter.

The time, however, was not now.

Later. It could be later.

This was all for the good of her People. That was the most important thing.


	7. To Marry a Mage

Cullen did his best to not fidget. His sisters, brother, and parents were in his rooms for the first time since he had taken the title Thane, and all of them were fussing over him in their own way.

Mia and Roaslie were occupying themselves with braiding his hair, as was proper for such an event. Proper did not necessarily mean pleasant, as his hair was curly and even with the excess length, his sisters insisted on making small, tight braids that hung down behind his left ear. They assured him it looked handsome, but Cullen rather was wishing they would stop sometime soon. His scalp was aching.

Branson was polishing the metal fastenings of his formal clothing until they gleamed, chattering nonstop at Cullen about how lucky he was and how beautiful and strong his children would be. Branson, Cullen knew, had been waiting a long while for Cullen to marry, so that he would not marry before his brother the Thane. It was a gesture that was unecessary, as Cullen had said many times before, but that had not stopped his brother.

There was almost certainly going to be another wedding in short order, Cullen knew. Branson had had his eye on a woman from another nearby Hold and had asked Cullen near nonstop for tactical ways in and out of the hold in question.

His parents cooed over him in their own way, plying him with gifts for his wife they pressed into his palms and pockets, with whispered recommendations on how to please her. Even after having heard how well he had done in taming Aurum to begin with, his father still had suggestions on how to make sure his wild-wife craved him more than air itself, and his mother was helpfully recounting the best positions to take her in so that a child would be in her belly before the summer.

Cullen really wished they would stop. Hearing his parents passionately describe the best ways to pleasure Aurum was equal parts mortifying and unnecessary. He knew how to please her. He had done a good job of it so far. Besides, all they were really doing was filling his head with arousing images and thoughts of what he could do with his wife after the marriage and subsequent feast. It was distracting him from remembering all of the knots he had grown up learning and how to detangle them.

“Make sure you use your mouth on her, Cullen. The Gods-” his mother went on, at length, about how the Gods and Spirits had designed a woman's body for pleasure, and a man's body to bring it to her.

Cullen was well aware of that. He had heard the story growing up many, many times, and to hear it again on his wedding day was not helping his ability to focus in the slightest. He knew the taste of her on his tongue, he had held her up against that door and made her scream his name alongside the Gods she worshiped. She had elevated him as their equal and he knew much and more of how to bring her pleasure.

But of course, his parents, they wanted to ensure he had the knowledge, so on and on they went, with his siblings offering their own input from time to time.

It was only when the sun was high in the sky that they finally decreed him ready to go and meet his wife. He was not to see Aurum until after he had undone her knots and knew for how many years he would be married as his people counted it. There could always be further marriage ceremonies, there could be renewals and all that, but there was much riding on him managing at least the one knot.

He did hope for more.

With his family gone to join the others and allow Aurum time for her own final preparations, Cullen took a look at himself in the brass mirror his mother had brought to him as a gift. It was large, large enough for him to see himself fully in, and Cullen regarded himself as best he knew how.

He was dressed as a Thane to be married should be dressed. The leather of his vest and trousers was supple, soft to the touch, embroidered by his sisters and brother to give their family history life once more. The fur that lined his cuffs and neckline was a deep red, near black in places, and he knew that his father and mother had gone on a hunt with some of his men after the great plains-lions that occasionally encroached into their territory. What had happened with the rest of the beast's fur, he did not yet know, but it was a fine gift.

He had new boots, as well, a gift from the women of his Hold, sumptuous and warm. From the men, a new blade, sturdy and strong, crafted by the best blacksmith in the Hold. Cullen was unused to the gifts being showered upon him, but it was to ensure luck in the marriage. He had to present the best image possible to his bride-to-be, for even if they could not talk before the marriage ceremony was complete, she could still be swayed to sing longer if he looked well enough.

Cullen had already promised himself to undo as many knots as possible. Going through this manner of extravagance was hard on his Hold and Aurum had told him what the marriage of her people would entail. He wanted to respect that he had asked for her entire life in the consideration of her people, and give her as much as she was willing to take of his.

Briefly, he was struck by the thought that Aurum had no one present to gift her bride-wear, and for a moment, he was concerned. She – if she had been of a Hold, she would be draped in gems and gold and furs so soft that they felt like clouds against skin. But she was Dalish. And this was not the marriage of her people. Would they...would anyone judge her harshly for it? His Hold had taken care of hi, but he did not know if her people would deign to take care of her in the same way.

But he did not have much more time to consider it.

His father was back at the door, urging him to come out. His bride was ready to sing, and her knotted rope had been brought.

The tables he passed by in the Hall were set, waiting for the feast that would come after the marriage was officiated. The extent of the feasting was dependent entirely on the knots undone and how generous the visiting Avvar Holds chose to be. Cullen had seen feasts last for days – he had _been_ to marriage feasts that had lasted that long, in his youth, and spent them all in a drunken haze.

He had also witnessed marriages like the one Alrik had forced upon his child-bride. Solemn affairs, with little joy from the side giving their child to one unwanted. The food was bland, the music stern, and all had left disconcerted. For a surity, with a Thane, there would still be more celebration, but the Spirits could not possibly allow such an unwanted marriage to come to fruition.

Cullen shook his head. He could not think of these things, he decided as he stepped out into the bright sunlight. His Hold cheered for him, rowdy and exuberant. They wanted this to be a grand celebration, one worthy of their time and one especially worthy of the ale and liquors that had been stored away for this very occasion.

Dorian stood in front of the ceremonial fire pit, flanked by the other shamans, and the great snow lion that was their holdbeast. His friend gestured him forward, indicating where Cullen should sit. Cullen had attended enough of the marriages of his people to know where to sit and what to do and when, but Dorian was the Augur and it was his job to guide this ceremony.

So Cullen sat where he was told to, in front of the fire, encircled by the Hold. His back was to where Aurum would approach from, so that he could not see her. He would only be so lucky as to see her arm, and perhaps the hem of any skirt or dress she wore, if anything. He was being judged moreso than she. If he wanted to, he could turn and judge her the same, but it was not necessary. He was going to undo as many knots as he could. He owed Aurum that.

He was taking away any future marriage, any hope for life for her outside of his Hold. He was taking away her Clan, everything she had known, her nomadic life. He was doing that for the good of his people, and if the Gods were kind, they would give him the mental clarity to solve her Dalish knots.

Dorian began the prayers necessary to sanctify the area before his near-wife was to come in. Cullen sat reverently still, silently saying his own prayers to the Gods and Spirits that had brought this moment to fruition. If this was what they truly wanted from him, then let them make this work. Let them make this marriage blessed beyond measure. Aurum was giving so much of herself, and Cullen did not know if merely trade rights and land rights were enough to be considered good enough to make her own Gods happy.

His friend and Augur finished the prayers and gestured for Aurum to come forward from where she had been hidden from him.

The nearly rowdy crowd of his people stilled to silence.

Cullen clenched his hands tight on his knees to keep from turning to regard her. It could only be Aurum that was drawing that reaction from his people. His family, seated across the fire from him looked between Cullen and Aurum. Branson grinned wickedly, and winked at Cullen. He saw the starting of crass words on his brother's lips, but then Mia was interjected, smacking Branson in the ribs and gesturing for him to be still.

He heard the melodious chime of delicate chains, the heavier clink of beads, and the soft rustling of a fabric lighter than anything his people had any use for. But still, Cullen did not look over his shoulder He heard women and men alike sigh, their exhalations touched with breathless desire.

Her magic whispered against his skin as she drew closer, and he smelt perfume waft through the air. Over his left shoulder, her hand appeared, holding the knotted length of rope he was to unknot to bind them together.

For a long, long moment, he stared at the slender turn of her wrist, and her long, fingers. She was bedecked in jewelry – chains and rings and bangles adorned her arm, and he could feel the barest touch of further chains brush against his back. The air was heavy with the scent of royal elfroot and ebrium, and he knew it was her perfume. The scent enchanted, promised and enticed, and Cullen found himself leaning backwards, trying to press himself against her to breathe her deeper into him, but she was pulling away, retreating to the spot where Dorian directed her.

It was time for her to sing.

Cullen looked down to the knotted rope in his lap. When she began to sing, he would have to begin unworking this. The knots were complex, nearly an artform unto themselves, something that he could hardly believe she put together in just one night, and without any other tools than her fingers. How he was to undo this, he did not know.

Her knots were like the lace-work his mother's Hold had once practiced before they had been destroyed by the late winter sick-spell. Coiling about itself, her knots were a spiral wrapping around themselves. He could not even begin to count how many there were, could not fathom the years that Aurum had represented with these knots, could not bring himself to understand how and why she had chosen to do this and dedicate herself to him so utterly. Could he truly take all of this from her? Is this what she had wanted?

He knew she had listened to the women, to Dorian, and as he worried the lone exposed end of the rope between his fingers, Cullen found that he maybe understood. He had asked, without knowing it, for her entire life to be given to him. For marriage as the Dalish do, she had to give him everything of her. Her future, and any dreams she had had of being anything other than a political playing card. Perhaps this was her way of asking for the same. A promise, a guarantee that she was not undoing everything in her life for someone who would abandon her as soon as he was capable.

Cullen steeled himself, and did his best to commit himself to the idea of undoing as many of these small, intricate knots as possible. This was her everything, her life, and the years after.

Dorian nodded to Aurum behind him, and she began to sing.

Her voice was one imbued with the power of spirits, and her own mystic ability. The words were incomprehensible to those gathered, save one. Cullen bit his tongue and bent his head to the first knot in the long series of knots, trying to ignore all the bubbling emotions that were rising in him.

She was singing their song.

Granted, there were words to it now, words that there had not been when she had first shown him her song entwined with his. But that was their song. She sang with words in Dalish and sounds twisting off her tongue, but that was their song, and he knew it. It tugged on his heart and he felt his body react to the memory. His mind was scrambling for clarity over the arousal that rose in his blood. He had to get the knots undone.

But she was singing their song.

It took nothing to remember the feel of her skin against his, the texture of her skin against his tongue, the taste of her slick nectar, because the song reminded him. Their song reminded him, and it was nearly too much to not turn around immediately and grab her by the back of the neck and pull her into a kiss fierce enough to melt their clothes from their bodies. He would take her here and now if he could.

 _Oh but that was for her wedding, not his_.

Not even that thought could slake his sudden thirst for his wife.

Cullen shook his head. He had to focus. He had no idea how long she was planning to sing for, but he had to at least get one knot undone.

At least one.

So he looked down and began working at the first knot. It did not seem overly complicated, not like the nest of spiraling knots that he had in his lap, and the journey of a thousand miles began with a single step, as his mother would say. So he worked at the tight knot, working it loose, tugging and twisting and considering, momentarily, mouthing at it to try and loosen the knots with spit. That would be unseemly.

Disregarded, then.

From behind him, Aurum still sang their song, and he had to force himself to focus on her knots instead of the sweet words of passion she sang from behind him.

Had it really only been a matter of days that they had known each other? Had it really only been a few breathless moments she had spent in his arms? Only a handful of times that he had spilled his seed in her belly?

He bit his lip and tried to focus. The first knot was coming loose and he had no idea how much longer her song was, no idea how much longer their song was, but he could feel the stares of his Hold on him. He only had the one knot to undo to make this at least a year so he could redo this ceremony again in a year’s time, but he didn’t want to have to wait that year not knowing if she would grant him the opportunity to try again.

At last, that first stubborn knot came undone, leaving him with a long tail and –

“oh.”

His voice sounded small, and the crowd around him fell silent.

Carefully, gingerly, he pulled on the free end of the rope and watched, entranced, as the knots unraveled. He wrapped the rope around his hand and pulled again. The knots all unraveled, one after the other. He pulled and her life was given over to him, and his to hers. The crowd watched, just as awestruck as Cullen himself as Aurum sang and he unraveled what seemed like a thousand thousand little knots

It was so easy, so eays, and his heart clenched at the thought of it. He could stop at any time, he knew that. It did not matter how many he had already unraveled, because it was already long beyond the counting of years that any Avvar man could hope to live. But he was hopelessly entranced. He pulled, and she gave her life over to him, and he gave his life to her.

Her singing only stopped as he undid the final knot, leaving him with a lapful of rope with no knot in sight.

Breathless, he turned back to look at her, even as Dorian proudly proclaimed them married, as his Hold cheered for their Thane, and beheld her smiling. Dorian gestured for Cullen to stand and pass him the rope. Generally, this was the time where the rope was cut based on how far along their lives they would be together, and then their hands tied to one another's to signify that bond.

But they had pledged everything, far beyond the days and months that stretched before them, and there would never be life without the other. There was rare permanence in either of their cultures, but with this and the marriage ceremony still to come, there was this one constant – they were bound together as husband and wife.

Aurum stepped forward at Dorian's direction, and Cullen looked upon his _wife_ for the first time.

She was dressed in robes of deep blue that she must have hidden somewhere in her aravel, because not even the best sewer-women of his Hold could make something that fit her so well so quickly. There was hardly a part of her neck, throat or wrists that was not adorned with golden, silver and bronze bangles, beads and chains. Aurum chimed with every movement, and her hair was set with a net of gems that matched the color of those robes. Momentarily, he was heartbroken that all of those delightful marks he had left on her neck were wiped away, but the neckline of her robe slipped and he saw just the barest hint of those deep wine-red marks and all at once his blood was fire again.

Dorian pulled their hands together and began tying the most intricate series of knots he knew how to tie, going from wrist to elbow, keeping them in close contact with each other.

“Let us now feast with the new couple!” Dorian called out, a start to the revelry.

* * *

Aurum was a pleasant warm weight in his lap. She let him sip mead from her mug, and her mug was never half-empty for long. The Hold wanted them drunk and pleasant and pleasurable for each other. Aurum leaned into him, a blush dusting her cheeks, and Cullen ached to have a hand free to cup her ass.

He was as drunk as she was. He was as drunk as her and she was his _wife_ now. She leaned in to kiss him, and he mumbled something filthy in Avvish against her lips and she whispered something back in Dalish.

“Tell me what you said,” he growled, tugging her closer.

“Garas, aman, na’mis…” she purred, sipping more of the mead. “Come to me, I shall sheath your blade.”

The accompanying roll of her hips left little doubt about which blade and which sheath she could be referring to.

Cullen growled again, and took the mead from her, draining a goodly amount of it. All around him, his Hold was celebrating, eating good food, whispering amongst themselves, dragging their own wives and husbands and paramours into the sheltered alcoves that dotted the Hold for some enjoyment of the festivities. Cullen’s cock was hard and pressed intently up against his wife’s round ass, and he could be imagining it, but he was moderately certain he could smell her arousal over the perfume she wore.

“And what did you say, husband mine?” Aurum whispered in his ear.

“That I was going to take you back to our bed and show you just what an Avvar man can do to his wife to-”

“Thane Cullen! And your new bride! So good to see you! I didn’t think we would make it in time, but here we are, aren’t we?”

Cullen stiffened, looking up sharply from his wife to the speaker.

“Thane Alrik, I had not…expected you,” Cullen replied graciously, not moving to stand.

Unconsciously, he tightened his grip on her hip, pulling her closer to him, protectively seeking a way to block her from Alrik. The hulking behemoth of a Thane was flanked by his diminutive wife. Aurum tensed in his lap, seeking his hand and squeezing it for no reason other than to comfort herself. The little girl was no further out of her first blooding than Aurum’s own younger sister.

“I only wanted to come congratulate you, dear Thane! I see your wife is a mite older than mine, but it’s so hard to tell with these little rabbits, isn’t it?” Alrik growled in Avvish. “Hopefully yours will get with child easier than mine. We try and try, but she just can’t seem to hold a babe in her yet.”

Aurum was stone-still in his lap, and Cullen did not know how to soothe her. How much she understood, he did not know, but he was not so crass as to respond to Alrik in Avvish.

“Thank you for the warm words, Thane Alrik. Please, sup with us.”

It would do him no good to be rude, but Aurum was nearly vibrating now, clearly trying to hold back words against her teeth. Gently, he released her hand so he could turn her chin towards him. He kissed her softly, working the words out of her mouth with his tongue. She was slow to respond, her emotions warring against everything that had risen up in her at Alrik’s arrival.

“I’m sorry, Aurum. I’m sorry,” he whispered against her lips, his voice nearly lost amongst the revelry of the Hold. “I’ll make it up to you, I’m so sorry.”

She was unmoving against him for a heartbeat longer.

“Can we go back to our room now?” she asked quietly, looking at Cullen demurely. “I don’t want…the little one, she’s in pain. I can’t help right now, can I?”

Aurum tugged on their bound hand and looked back to the party going on around them.

“No…we can’t, not either of those. We have to be out here and eat food, and we can’t help. Her Clan gave her in marriage. Only for a year, only for a year, Aurum.”

“He’s going to kill her before then,” she said flatly, looking carefully across the distance to where the little elvhen girl was standing at attention, waiting for her husband to indicate what she could do and when. Whenever Alrik raised his hand too high, she flinched. Just barely. But she flinched.

Aurum frowned. She opened her mouth to speak again but-

“Keeper Aurum Kingshold, a gift from the bride Alrik possesses,” a polite voice interrupted.

Aurum turned to regard the speaker, whose voice was touched by the accent of a Dalish native speaker. Her eyes dropped down to the offered gift, and immediately her mood changed.

“Ma’serannas, falon. ( _My thanks, friend_.)”

The gift was a small shirt, definitively too small for Aurum to wear, but the giver was wearing a pair of gloves, and was careful to not let the shirt touch anything else. Aurum was careful to pick a napkin from the table to take the gift, with a gracious bow of her head.

“The lady fair wishes to invite you to her rooms in the Hold for supper when you have been settled. She has a grand view of the mountains behind the Hold, and the main fire-pit where the Avvar dance for their Gods. Her windows are large and expansive and give a grand view of what is happening around the hold. She hopes you will accept her request.”

“Consider it done, falon,” Aurum purred in response, looking down at the gift. It was a nice shirt. A pretty one. And she could already scent the girl on the fabric. A fine gift, indeed.

She looked up to the girl, who caught her gaze and did not release it. Her eyes were as hard as steel and she did not look away until Aurum nodded once. There was a question that she had answered, and the girl-bride relaxed markedly at that.

Cullen waited for the elf who had approached them to leave before turning to Aurum.

“What was that about, Aurum?”

Aurum hummed beneath her breath, considering her words.

“It was…a good gift. I feel better. We don’t have to leave just yet. I will need someone who is wearing gloves to take this back to our room and put it in a box for safekeeping.”

Cullen nodded, confused, but gestured backwards for someone from the Hold to do just that. Aurum sat contentedly in his lap once again, purposefully not looking to Alrik, and feeding herself and Cullen bits of food from the table intermittently.

“Aurum please? What was-”

“Dalish gift-giving is odd to outsiders. I promise I will explain it later. But for now, you have to be the impressive Thane, and I believe we have this food to eat, and mead to drink. We have been married, Cullen. It would be best to celebrate it, I think.”

He made only token protestation as she kissed him again, and even that was soon quieted by the taste of mead on her tongue pressed against his. Cullen looked to Alrik, to the child bride, but then Aurum was pressing her breasts against his chest and whispering strands of their song to him and assuring him that all was well indeed, and he had been _married_.

Gods, he was married to the woman in his lap. And she was feeding him morsels of food and sips of mead and beer and whispering those sweet Dalish nothings at him.

Whatever it was that was coming in the future, whatever it was that she had planned for them, whatever had just transpired with the other elf, it did not matter just then. She was fine, and his discomfort with Alrik could be forgotten long enough to let her feed him another morsel of food, and definitely could be forgotten long enough for him to feed her and listen to those delightful Dalish words pour out of her mouth.


	8. To Enjoy a First Night

They did not move from their spot at the head table until much, much later in the evening. The sun had set, and no further lights had been lit. The Hall was dim, and the air was heavy with smoke. Food had not stopped coming from the kitchens, and beer and mead overflowed from pitchers the serving staff continuously brought out.

Aurum had not moved from her spot in Cullen’s lap, and he had spent his evening feeding her beer and mead and morsels of food. Everything his Hold had, in abundance, he gave her, and she never refused the food. She was drunk, and so was he, and hands had started roaming hours ago, to both of their keen arousal.

Cullen was murmuring Avvish at her nonstop now, his face buried in the crook of her neck as one hand kneaded at her thigh, and the other was creeping ever higher up her side, his fingers flicking against the underside of her breast at odd intervals. Aurum trembled in his arms, leaning against his chest, breathless with want for him. He knew it, she knew it, and now it was merely a waiting game for the Hold to decide that the two of them could be let go.

It was the Hold’s decision to stop supplying them with alcohol and food and bless their short stumble back to his bedrooms where he could –

“Push my _wife_ up against that _wall_ and fuck. Her,” he growled, his thoughts spilling out of his mouth.

Aurum whined, trying to turn her head so she could press her mouth against Cullen’s, but he tightened his grip on her and pressed his face harder into her neck. His teeth pressed against her skin, and his hand gripped tighter on her thigh.

“Can feel your robe’s wet. Your thighs are slick with want?”

She nodded, rubbing her thighs together, feeling how _much_ of her arousal had seeped from her. His cock was distractingly hard against her ass, and she had enough movement in her hips to rock herself against him. Cullen groaned her name against her skin, arching up against her, chasing friction that he had been denied so long.

Aurum could feel the muscles low in her belly clench, and she was so _empty_.

Her words escaped her with the drag of his blunt teeth down the column of her neck, and everything in her world pinpointed down to the burning need she had for him. Everything tipped and twisted around them both, and the only thing that even felt remotely real anymore was where they touched.

One of the women of the Hold brought another platter of food for them, offering it first to Cullen, who selected a piece for himself, and then to Aurum, who took one for herself. Cullen purred when she offered the food to him in her stead, suckling the…whatever food it was, he had lost the ability to actually taste it hours ago, off of her fingers, before letting her do the same with the piece he had chosen. The woman, pleased, left the two of them alone.

Cullen let his fingers linger on Aurum’s lips, and she smirked before opening her mouth just the slightest bit wider and sucking his finger into her mouth. Cullen hissed a curse beneath his breath as Aurum’s tongue flicked across the pad of his finger. With a grin, she sucked his finger deeper into her mouth, her eyes fluttering closed for the moment as she tasted him.

“ _Aurum_ ,” he groaned as she readjusted herself in his lap, twisting so she could straddle his hips.

Her robe got tangled, and without a thought, she reached back for a knife to carve a slit in her robe from ankle to hip, freeing her just enough to manage her position better. Cullen growled, dragging his fingers up her bared thigh, sliding his palm across her leg until he was cupping the back of her leg. He made a choked sound as his thumb rubbed across her hip.

“…no… _smalls_ ,” he whispered, almost afraid.

Aurum purred something that could have, perhaps been a “of course”, and Cullen trembled.

She was a waif compared to him. Small. Slender. Likeable to break in battle, but in that moment he felt more fragile than anything else in the Hold. He was going to break into a thousand tiny pieces because his wife wasn’t wearing smalls and she was very very very much in his lap right then.

The grin on her lips did not abate as she shifted in his lap, making sure that her robe was neatly out of the way. Cullen felt her magic tug on the laces of his trousers. His heart leapt into his throat at the implication.

“Yes?” she asked, stroking the back of his neck.

He nodded emphatically. He wanted. He ached for her. He was so hard and wanting for her. All of his skin was afire and the only way he could think to quench it was with the slick, sweet nectar that dripped from her core.

Her magic undid the laces of his trousers and peeled the material away. Aurum shifted in his lap, and Cullen was rewarded with the delicious drag of her dripping wet slit across his cock. He bit back a gasp, and Aurum grinned wickedly. With just a few lazy rocking movements of her hips, she had Cullen at her complete and utter mercy.

“Can you be good? Do you want me?” she whispered into his ear.

“ _Yesssssss_ ,” he whimpered against the flesh of her neck.

“Then be… **very** …still.”

Aurum pressed a kiss to his temple, and stood up from his lap. Cullen made a very displeased sound at that, and nearly reached to pull her back down into his lap. Part of the reason was that his cock was out and he did not, necessarily, want his Hold to see his dick on his wedding night, unless it was buried in his wife’s greedy cunt.

She turned quickly, adjusted her robes, and sat back down on his lap.

Sat back down on his _cock_.

Cullen grunted, grabbing her by the hips. He bit his lip, trying to keep quiet as he _felt_ her clench down on him hard enough to have him scrambling to grab onto something more stable than her hips.

Aurum leaned back against his chest, resting the back of her head on his shoulder. For a few moments, she just let the both of them revel in the _feeling_ of it all. Her mouth was near enough to his ear for him to hear the ragged gasps that spilled from her lips when he made minute rocking movements with his hips. Those moments stretched on to infinity until –

“Did you want to bend me over that table, Cullen?” she whispered, her voice barely breaking over the sounds of the Hold.

They were not the only couple who had the idea of some momentary interlude. It was not frowned upon, not in the Hold. But it was still meant to be somewhat discreet. Taking his wife, standing her up, only to pin her down, face-first on the table was not, necessarily, discreet. It would not be the most egregious thing to ever have happened on one of these weddings, but Cullen had never been totally understanding of such displays.

But Aurum was rocking her hips ever so slightly, sighing every time he mirrored her movements back to her.

“Ruck up my pretty robes…sink your fingers into the net in my hair...pull my hair, make me scream your name for the entire Hold to see?”

He couldn't tell if she was still asking if he wanted her like that, or just sighing out her own desires into his ear. Either way, his heart stopped beating after every breathy suggestion, only to restart again, beating harder and harder against his ribs.

“Aurum-” he started, a warning rumbling in the back of his throat.

“Or would you rather I pin you down beneath me...ride you like a stallion until you put a child in me?” she purred, grabbing one of his hands to move it to cup her swollen stomach.

Cullen knew that the bulge in her belly was just because they had been consuming so much food and ale and mead all night. But that didn't stop his hand from roaming across the small swelling, or his cock from somehow managing to harden more than it already was because _Spirits_ , the thought of her pregnant and still so happy to sit on his cock. So wet and open for him.

“You’d like that? Hands on your chest, keeping you still as I take. My. **Time**. With you. Letting everyone watch as I lose my mind?”

Cullen groaned lowly, burying his face in her neck, biting down when she clenched around his cock again. He wanted more than just this slow tease. His cock was completely encased in her, sheathed as she had asked it to be, but the best they could manage without drawing attention were only slow rocking movements that did nothing but make him ache for more. He had tasted her very depths, pressed his cock into her deepest parts and now all he could do was slowly let himself be teased by his _wife_.

“You’re testing me, woman,” he growled.

“What ever shall you do with me? Certainly not drag me back to your bed and make me scream your name again…” she said with a sigh. “Especially not if you wanted to do that…aaaaaaah, _thiiiing_ with your mouth again.”

Aurum’s voice turned into a song, high and reedy, and Cullen’s vision swam.

“I liked that thing. Ssso…. _much_. It made…ah, it made everything in me burn. I want…I want it again. I want to take your cock in my mouth. I want to taste my honey on your cock, and then your seed on my tongue. Oh, to have my belly bloated with your seed, my husband…oh my husband.”

She arched her back, pressing her stomach against his hands.

He was forgetting why he didn’t just throw her up against the table. He wanted to have more of her. More than just this. He wanted her all to himself for days. Days and days and days with nothing but her. Nothing but her, and him.

“Cullen… _Cullen_ ,” she panted, rising and falling on his cock with more and more fervor.

Her breath came in harsh pants, and she undulated against him. Cullen made a sharp sound of surprise under his breath because she wasn’t being subtle anymore. She was fucking him and it was obvious to anyone who looked up at them. Anyone who looked at the high table would see the Thane with his beautiful new wife in his lap, head thrown back against his shoulder, mouth gaping open as she moved her hips up and down and up again.

Cullen gasped, grabbed her hips and thrust up into her slick wetness, snarling as he felt her cunt clench down on him hard enough to strangle the blood from the head of his prick. Good Gods, he wanted her facedown and _screaming_ and he –

“We’re going back to my rooms now, Aurum.”

She mewled, reaching back to grab the back of his neck. Aurum rolled her hips, intent on chasing the feeling she felt blooming in her heart. Cullen growled a warning at her, not wanting to do this in public, because she was _his_ and no one else deserved to see her like this. Her pleasure belonged solely to him now.

“Aurum, now.”

The elvhen woman’s only response was a desperate moan, a breathless “ _Cullen_.”

He sucked in air through clenched teeth and pushed her just far up enough that his cock could slide free of her slit. The air of his Hold was cold against his skin and he hissed a curse. Aurum wriggled against his grip, artfully trying to find enough leverage to get herself back down onto his cock, but Cullen was determined. He was not going to let his Hold see how his wife fell to pieces.

But he would make certain they all heard it.

Hastily, he shoved his cock back into his trousers, tied a hastier knot with one hand, and picked Aurum up, holding the slit in her dress closed so no one else would get to see the tattoos that traced down her legs. She curled herself around him as best she could, trying to get him to put her down and fuck her.

The Hold erupted into uproarious applause. Men and women both rushed them, pressing gifts and baubles into their grasp. Cullen growled, trying to get them all out of his way because his wife was wriggling in his arms, mewling Dalish words that he half-recognized as filthy. She still collected the small pieces of jewelry, the furs, the everything that the Hold wished to give them, in her arms with a happy sigh.

Cullen tightened his grip on Aurum, protectively trying to block her from the view of those who were undeserving of seeing her. But the Hold wanted to delay them, It was all part of the grand game. They were to delay them, build anticipation and desire.

Branson stepped close to Cullen, just long enough to whisper that Aurum smelled _so good_. Distracted by his brother’s crass statement about his _wife_ , Cullen loosened his grip on Aurum just barely enough for her to manage to get out of his grasp. With the ease of one not as intoxicated as he, she tumbled out of his arms, passed the baubles to Mia, before grabbing him by his belt and pulling him close to her.

Thus distracted from punching his smug brother in the face, Cullen turned his attention back to his wife who was sighing Dalish at him again, and Korth save him, her mouth looked so very inviting. Mia offered her own comment, and then Rosalie, both smiling around Avvish words that Aurum did not care to listen to, but distracted Cullen enough to stop him in his tracks.

Aurum pulled on his belt again, the people around him jeered triumphantly. He glared at them, and despite the way his weight seemed to sway from foot to foot as he stood there and how he couldn’t quite manage to get his gaze to focus on anything but _Aurum_ , Cullen was absolutely certain his glare was terrifyingly scathing. His sisters laughed at him, his brother ruffled his hair, and his wife pressed her lips to him and pulled him back towards his room.

Her mouth tasted like mead and sugar, and all at once it wasn’t enough to just have her lips on his. He wanted to taste the texture of her tongue, and the sweetness of her mouth. His legs and hers tangled as he rushed her towards his rooms, mouth on hers, tongues twined, thighs pressed together, hands in her hair, tearing that glimmering net of gems from her hair so he could feel her hair against his palm.

She moaned into his mouth when he ran her into the wall, arching against him. Aurum didn’t mind the bite of splinters from the rough wall into the back of her arms. She had Cullen’s hard body pressed against her and that was enough to take the sting of the wood away.

But that _empty_ feeling was back again. She was empty and ached for his cock in her again.

“Isalan dera na aron tuelan, Cullen. Sathan, pala ma sule banalan in’em, ma tel’rosa’da’din’el,” she hissed against his mouth. ( _I will touch you like a Creator, Cullen. Please, fuck me until you empty yourself inside of me and can’t orgasm any longer._ )

Cullen bit her lip after she finished, desperate to know what she said, but unable to find the words as he tried to focus on getting his door open so he could drag her to his bed. His fingers were clumsy for the first time in ages, fumbling with the familiar door because he had his wife pressed against the wall near the door and what sounded like his entire Hold cheering him on.

“You’re going to tell me wh- _at!_ you just said, **wife** ,” he growled, finally getting his door open.

Aurum just laughed and pushed him through the door, evading the questing hands of the members of the Hold. She kicked the door shut behind them both, Cullen barred it shut before he closed the distance between them again.

He did not care to notice that his room had been altered during his marriage ceremony and subsequent feasting, not until his foot got tangled on a massive pelt that had not been there before. Aurum took advantage of his momentary distraction and pushed him down onto it. The room was dark – candles had not been lit in it, and there was no one here to do it for them.

Cullen looked up at her, breathless. She waved a hand, and the candles that he had lit at once. Aurum smiled down at him, wreathed in candlelight, and crawled atop him.

Again, she straddled him, smiling down at him, her eyes glowing with anticipation and something he could only assume was magic. Cullen was not at all bothered by having her atop him. He was… _married_ now. To her. Forever.

“I will touch you as a Creator…as a God. I want you to fuck me until you are emptied of seed and cannot orgasm any longer,” she sighed, her head rocking back.

Beneath the layers of jewelry and beads, he could see the marks he had left on her skin and Cullen was breathlessly still.

“Truly…truly you’re going to kill me. Aurum, Gods, Aurum, you’re going to _kill_ me talking like that,” he slurred.

His hands trembled as he reached up to grasp at her robe. Alone now, outside the gaze of everyone else, everything was different. This wasn’t time for harshness. Roughness. Anything else. Gods above, he had her forever, and he wanted to take forever with her.

“Do you want me to stop, husband mine?” she whispered, leaning down over him, bracing her hands on either side of his shoulders.

Nothing in the entire world of Thedas mattered in that moment but the slow lick of her tongue against her plumped bottom lip. Her eyes burned with intention, and Cullen rather felt like prey.

But to be hunted by one such as her, oh that was quite the different thing.

“No. Never.”

She smiled, and sat back up.

“Then we will continue. Starting with all…this nonsense,” she said, lip curling as she gestured to her jewelry.

Cullen just nodded dumbly, too aroused to really think himself any manner of help in working the dozens of tiny clasps and buttons free. He watched though, he certainly watched as Aurum carefully pulled every strand of gems and chains free from her body. She threw them away from them, out of the way of any future movements.

Her pale skin bore marks where the chains or cuffs or gems had pressed into her skin, but when Cullen leaned up to soothe the marks over her wrist, Aurum only allowed his gentle kiss to linger there for a moment before she gently pushed him back down. He protested softly, wanting more than just the feeling of her weight across his hips and his hand against her chest, but she was unyielding.

“No, stay. Watch me.”

He swallowed his objection down, nodding when she reached up to pull the last few bits of her hair-net that had remained, leaving her long mane of hair free. Even with the sides of her head shaved down, she had hair enough to create an alluring curtain about her shoulders as she worked her robe’s laces free.

The one long slit up her leg left Cullen plenty to look at and wish to touch more of as she began the long process of getting her robe off of her.

When the material hung slack at her neck and down her sides, Cullen expected to see her remove it immediately – one long pull of cloth and then he would have his naked wife in his lap. But Aurum did no such thing, leaning further back so he could see the long lines of her body instead. Slowly, tantalizingly, she undulated her body, mimicking the lovers dance with the air above Cullen’s stomach. His throat knotted up with desire, but he remembered her admonition. He had told her to keep her hands where they were once, he could do her the honor of listening to her in turn.

Slowly, she moved her hands to where the slit in her dress was, spreading the fabric wider, mimicking the sort of movement Cullen would like to do to the pretty slit between her thighs. Carefully, her fingers traced up the length of her leg, and he watched those movements with an especial kind of hunger.

She kept her every motion slow, considered, careful as she began pulling her robe off – letting it gape just the bit more at the neck, then rucking the hem higher, tugging at the once-tight bodice, lifting her skirts so that he could catch the barest glance of her tattooed flesh before the robe dropped back down to cover her again.

His hips made a quickly-aborted, impatient jerk when the neckline of her robe dropped down completely, falling to her waist for but a moment before she hastily caught it and held it up against her chest. It was a false modesty, a coy game, and he knew that. He knew that, but that didn’t stop the pleading whine that spilled from his lips as he watched her long fingers pinch at one of her nipples.

“Aurum, ple- _ase!_ ” he panted as she rolled her hips against him.

Her answering grin was coquettish.

“Please?” she parroted back, leaning over him, dropping her chest to his, keeping him from seeing any part of her that she was not yet ready for him to see in unmitigated glory. “I intend to please you, husband mine.”

Deftly, she undid the clasps and buttons of his clothing, pushing his shirt and vest from his shoulders to tangle around his arms as she pressed her lips against his. Cullen moaned, reaching up to wrap an arm around her waist. That movement, she allowed, even as she worked at undoing the laces of his trousers again, and Cullen was too eager to lift his hips so she could push the offensive article of clothing down.

Aurum leaned back from him, just far enough to get some better angle on getting his clothes off, and Cullen surged up.

 _Not_ having her mouth on his was just unacceptable at this point. Hurriedly, he stripped his clothing of, starting with the luxurious vest his family had gotten for him, and then pushing Aurum further back so he could shuck his trousers and smalls as well. Aurum smiled and finally – _finally_ removed her robe, leaving the both of them naked.

The wounded sound Cullen made at seeing his wife naked in his lap made Aurum nearly flinch before she relaxed against him. For a long, long moment, they just held each other, naked and wanting and willing, but just then, contemplative. They were married as the Avvar counted it, and forever, as the Avvar considered it. Gently, he traced his fingers down the length of her ears, watching her eyes flutter and close.

“Is that…okay?” he asked softly, uncertain of the taboo, other than it existed.

Aurum smiled and leaned into his touch.

“We are married. I do not mind it.”

“But…?” he asked, trying to eke out whatever hesitation was hidden in her words.

She sighed, and covered his hand with hers. Her thumb skipped across the back of his hand, and somehow, that simple, gentle movement made his heart stumble over itself in his chest.

“It is intimate. Moreso than I think you understand. Our ears are very, ahn, sensitive. To have someone else touch them is, aa _ah_ , Cullen-” she stopped, her body going slack against his as he reached up to stroke the lobe of her other ear as well.

“Yes, wife?”

Her response was a breathy moan, and Cullen chuckled. He didn’t stop, not for a moment, not even as he felt her thighs slicken anew.

“ _Ooooooh_ ,” she sighed, kissing his neck.

She let him continue with her ears, and he did so with great gentleness. He stroked the tips of her ears, rasped his fingers down the lobes as she lay sloppy, wet, open-mouth kisses all up and down his neck. Not once did she use her teeth, though she considered it for a long moment. She settled on suckling his earlobe in petty revenge for what he was doing to hers. Cullen gasped, and tilted his head to give her better access.

Aurum hummed happily, and slowly, slowly pushed Cullen back down flat against the new fur on his floor. His cock slid against her slick cunt for the barest moment, and they both groaned at the feeling.

“Cullen, I – aaah, the mirror is new.”

She interrupted herself, something catching her gaze out of the corner of her eye. Distracted, she sat up all the way, watching herself move in the mirror.

“It was a marriage gift,” Cullen said, turning his head so he could look into the mirror as well.

Slowly, Aurum began moving, rocking herself against his cock. Cullen couldn’t decide if he wanted to watch her or look at them both in the mirror. Watching them in the mirror won out, however. He could watch her body undulate as he pleased, and look at where they would soon be connected.

“I like it,” she said softly, still watching herself.

The candles cast shadows, making it seem as if her tattoos were twisting their way across her skin. The mirror cast her and him both in glittering relief. It almost did not seem real to see themselves as this. He carefully slid his hand up her thigh, using the mirror as a guide until his thumb was pressed up against her pearl. Her body tensed, and she rose up on her knees, just barely far enough for him to push his cock into position beneath her, so that when she relaxed, she sank down onto his aching prick.

Aurum’s head fell back, her mouth open, and Cullen bit the inside of his cheek to tamp down on the _need_ to lunge upwards and wrap his teeth around her throat. Not yet, not yet.

Slowly, she rode him, not looking at _him_ , but _them_ , in the mirror. Every movement, every slow, steady thrust, captured and shown back to them both…and for someone so unused to mirrors as Aurum, it had a nearly bewitching aspect to it. Cullen watched her face, watching the blush spread across her cheekbones, down her neck, all the way down her chest, where her beautiful pert breasts were bouncing with her every movement.

He did not thrust up into her just yet, pleased enough to watch her take her pleasure from him. Cullen wanted to feel her every movement, wanted to watch as she made herself fall apart using him as nothing more than a toy for her pleasure. It was utterly entrancing, truly. Aurum was not concerned with him, or his pleasure, only chasing the pleasure that bloomed in her blood at the sight.

She bit her lip, and nearly – _nearly_ closed her eyes.

“No…watch yourself, Aurum,” he said softly, reaching up to turn her gaze back to the mirror, wanting to see how she fell to pieces on his cock.

She stared at him for a brief moment, her breath trapped in her throat, and then she looked back at herself in the mirror. The blush across her chest deepened to a dark red, and with a soft cry, she came, not taking her eyes off herself in the mirror.

Cullen groaned as he felt her sweet cunt milk him for the seed he was not quite yet ready to plant in her. He rolled her pearl under his thumb, delighting in the way she seized up and keened some Dalish word or another. She could not find it in herself to keep a constant pace atop him any longer, so Cullen took control of that as well, holding her hips steady with his other hand as he slowly started to thrust up into her.

Aurum wailed, reaching backwards for something to hold onto, and helpfully, Cullen propped one of his knees up just enough for her questing hand to grab onto it. Her eyes never left the image of the two of them in the mirror, and Cullen’s never left her face. She was loose and unguarded now, honest with her emotions as they played across her face. The only emotion was variations on pleasure and desire, but that was fine. Just fine.

He wanted to bring her pleasure unending and this seemed as good a place as any to start.

“Cullen, sathan – _please_!” she cried out, finding it in her to buck her hips against the pressure of his thumb.

“Cum again, wife,” he growled.

Her eyes rolled, and she grit her teeth against a snarl. Cullen grinned lazily up at her, the alcohol swimming in his blood keeping him relatively relaxed against an otherwise ferocious display of other-ness from his new bride. It did not matter how she railed or snarled or growled, because she was still – _still_ sitting atop his prick, they were _still_ married, and he was _still_ going to put a child in her. If not tonight, then tomorrow. If not tomorrow, the day after that.

And on and on and on again until she had had her fill of bearing them children, and then, on and on again, just with some precautions in place to ensure that there were no surprise children.

Aurum whimpered, and he felt her tighten around him again, weaker this time. She nearly collapsed forward, but he caught her, and carefully, gently, turned her onto her side so he could spend a few moments kissing her face, and letting her catch her breath.

His wife was quicker to recover than he had anticipated, however, and he rather quickly found himself pushed onto his back again, and Aurum was straddling him. This time, though, her knees pressed on either side of his shoulders, and her hands were planted down by his hips. Through a haze, he stared up at her dripping slit, marveling at how it twitched and begged to be filled again.

Aurum’s mouth descended on his cock, and everything in Cullen jumped when he felt the buzz of her magic dance across her tongue. Without much thought, he reached up to pull her hips _down_ to his mouth so he could suckle her cunt as she did the same to his prick.

Oh, the pleasure was indescribable.

He couldn’t see either of them in the mirror, not with her thighs blocking out his peripheral vision and his face firmly planted in between them. But he didn’t need to. Aurum swallowed his not-at-all insubstantial length and girth with ease, her tongue flattening across the crown of his prick every time she withdrew from him. He did his best to not thrust up into her mouth, but she swallowed his entire length down without trouble and even when he felt the head of his cock at the back of her throat, she took more of him into her.

The first thrust was accidental, a reaction to tasting her nectar pour into his mouth as she came on his tongue, but a fresh deluge coated his mouth in response, and he heard a muffled moan. Aurum loved it. He delved deeper into her depths with his tongue, fumbling to get one of his hands into position so he could stroke her pearl as his tongue danced across her slick petals.

Aurum gently rocked herself against his face, her breaths only coming in sharp pants. Every movement of his tongue drove a hot lance of need through her entire body and she trembled. His cock in her mouth still tasted as she did, and the sensuality of it all made her ache anew. Cullen’s tongue plumbing her depths, tasting her folds, his fingers working at her clit and the rumbling groans he made every time she did something particularly pleasing to him made her breath hitch and her cunt clench with want.

His tongue was good, yes. It felt wonderful, it felt like worship, it felt _right_ , but Creators did she ache for something more than his tongue there.

Ah, but that meant not having his cock in her mouth and she wasn’t certain if she could give that up. He tasted so _good_ , and the hunger in her gut cared not where his seed was spilled as long as it was within her.

“Aurum, _Aurum_ , please!” Cullen moaned against the flesh of her thigh.

She pushed herself up, and he did not hesitate, flipping her onto her back, reorienting himself so that he was laying atop her. It took him no time at all to start thrusting into her anew, and Aurum mewled her pleasure to him. He thrust into her raggedly, burying his face in her neck. He kissed her softly, despite his harsh thrusts. Aurum panted his name, clawing down his back, leaving welts in the wake of her blunt fingernails.

“Can’t see…Cullen I want to _see_!” she keened, pushing on his shoulder.

He growled, bit her shoulder, just to leave a mark, and pulled away from her.

“You want to see? You want to _see_?” he snarled. Of course she did. He wanted to see as well. He wanted to watch her again and again and again until he truly could not come to completion even a single time more.

He withdrew from her, she whimpered, but he was quick to reorient her as she needed to be, and soon enough she was kneeling in front of the mirror as he tried to situate himself appropriately behind her. Aurum was quite intent upon being a distraction, however, and kept reaching back to brush a hand against his chest, his thigh, his arm…Cullen nearly gave up on what he was trying to accomplish in favor of just fucking her senseless.

But she had asked for this, and he wanted to give it to her. She was his wife, after all.

Aurum moved as directed, if only to expedite the process of having Cullen’s cock back in her. He pulled her back towards him, and she shuffled awkwardly backwards on her knees until she was straddling him as she had done at the High Table earlier. He was kneeling, and she was straddling him, her back pressed to his chest. His cock peeked out from between her legs, and for a moment, he let Aurum look at herself like that. Hesitantly, she rocked her hips against his cock, fascinated as the head of it appeared and vanished in time with her movements.

She reached down to cup the head of his cock as she rocked, and from behind her, Cullen hissed a warning, but she did not heed it, too fascinated by the visual it presented her. She leaned back against him, resting her head against his shoulder as she moved ever so slowly against his cock.

He was hard enough to push up against her slit, insistently hard, demandingly so. The feeling was…indescribable. If she arched just _so_ , she could watch the head of his cock disappear just the barest bit inside of her. Cullen cursed in Avvish, grabbing at her hips, trying to do his damndest to let her have this moment of exploration with their bodies and how they intertwined.

When she finally seemed satisfied to sink further down onto his cock, Cullen groaned and pulled her flush against him.

“Watch yourself, Aurum. Watch yourself as I fill you, my wife.”

Aurum grinned, reaching up and back to twine her fingers into Cullen’s hair. He reached down between her legs to flick his fingers across her clit again, and when she gasped, he chuckled, reaching up to pinch one of her nipples in time with the strumming of his fingers across her clit. She tensed, and he took that as permission to start lazily thrusting into her. Aurum gasped, struggling against the pleasure that suddenly overwhelmed her. Cullen held her steady against him, thrusting up into her, despite every need in him to go slow, this burning in his blood demanded more of him.

So he held her still, or as still as he could manage as she bucked against him. He fucked her, his eyes burning brightly in the mirror. There was something to watching, he decided, as he abandoned his assault on her clit to spread her labia wide so he could better watch his cock vanish into her.

It was hypnotic.

His cock would slide in, and Aurum would make a choked sound of ecstasy.

His cock slid out, covered in her juices. The excess dripped down onto the fur between his legs, and Aurum would shudder, trying to get him to thrust back into her again.

He was only too happy to oblige her.

Neither of their gazes ever left that mirror. Not even as Aurum’s eyes glazed over, not even as she came again and again and again, drowning in a haze of lust. Cullen fared no better, having to watch his wife cum on his cock again and again and again, lost in seas of pleasure. He didn’t want to cum quickly, he didn’t want to risk not being able to continue from exhaustion. But there was an ache in his belly that only grew the more he denied himself.

“Cullen, _please_!” she begged, pulling on his hair and fucking herself back onto his cock. “Please, _vhenan_ , please cum in me!”

Gods, he was helpless against that tone. Cullen wrapped both arms around her middle and thrust madly before cumming with a hoarse cry. Aurum mewled, collapsing forward as spasms of pleasure wracked her body.

Cullen moved with her, falling forward.

Aurum was pinned beneath him, just in front of the mirror. Her ass was still pressed against his hips, and his cock was still buried in her sheath. Cullen nearly expected her to push him off of her, for her to be done. Yes, she and he had had some amount of sex before, but his appetite was not so easily whet by a single occurrence. Yes, she had said that she wanted him to cum in her until he was incapable of cumming any longer, but there was saying filthy things, and then there was –

“ _Ahn,_ **Aurum**!” he cried as she began pushing herself back against his cock without picking herself up from the floor.

“More,” she demanded, breathy and whining.

Cullen swore anew, put his hands to her hips and fucked her. The gentleness was gone. His hands would leave bruises on her skin, but she was moaning with every thrust he made and it did not matter to him how trying for arousal made him ache, because Aurum was reaching between her own legs to offer him assistance in bringing her pleasure, and arching her back beneath him as he took her like an animal.

For the first long few moments, he stared down at her, mirror forgotten. Tattoos traced across the muscles of her back, and he watched her hands fist in the furs beneath her. Her hair was a wild mess, sticking to the nape of her neck where sweat had collected, and the side of her face that wasn’t pressed against the furs was screwed up in ecstasy.

She wailed her pleasure the harder he thrust, scrambling to find purchase so she could provide herself leverage to thrust back against him. Cullen groaned and reached forward to brush her hair off her neck ( _certainly that had to be uncomfortable_ ) but when he caught sight of himself in the mirror – hilted in his wife, his hand buried in her hair, thrusting into her, he had to catch himself.

His rhythm stuttered and for a long moment, he just _stared_. His eyes were wide and wild, hair disheveled, body flushed and it all hit him like a punch to the gut. He had not paid the mirror much mind until _just then_ and all at once he understood Aurum’s fascination. Cullen thrust, and watched himself thrust, watched the muscles in his abdomen tense, watched how the force of his movement translated all the way through her.

Oh, this he could get used to.

Cullen stared at himself in the mirror, stared at Aurum’s reflection beneath his, and came as hard as she did a moment later. His hand tightened in her hair, and she whined, bucking back against his cock.

He _hissed_ at that, the pleasure-pain of overstimulation demanding he make her pause for just a moment. Because he was by no means _done_ with his wife.

With a growl, he picked her back up, pulling her into his lap without letting his momentarily softening cock free from her depths. He satisfied himself with wrapping a hand around her throat to hold her still as he teased her pearl with wild abandon. Aurum threw her head back, moaning his name wantonly into his ear, but Cullen only had eyes for the mirror in that moment. He could see his wife in unadulterated glory, gasping his name and unable to do anything to get away from the pleasure he foisted upon her body.

His cock hardened in her willing sheath after what seemed like only a few moments of this torture and Aurum howled for _more_.

So he gave it to her.

Until the sun rose, and for a long few hours after that, they…fucked? made love? – it was hard to tell what, exactly, this was. But it was pleasurable, moreso than anything else he had ever experienced. Eventually, they tore themselves away from watching each other in the mirror (but not before he had taken her on her side, had her mouth on him while she faced the mirror and fingered herself, had her sit on his face again so she could watch him come undone untouched, and a few other positions that neither of them could quite remember come morning) and returned to bed where he pushed her onto her back, and lay atop her, thrusting lazily as sunlight filtered into the room and the Hold woke from their hangovers around them.

Finally, finally, she could count the burning in her blood as nothing more than cinders – for the moment – and he could desire for nothing more than to simply lie next to her, beneath furs that would need to be cleaned.

Aurum curled into his arms, trembling from aftershocks of pleasure. They were both slick with sweat and…assorted fluids, but that did not stop Cullen from pulling her close to him, burying them both in more furs and blankets to shut the entire world out.

It was just the two of them, and together, as husband and wife, they fell asleep.


	9. To Hunt

Oh, it was late in the night when Cullen rolled over to reach for his wife. She was so slender and when he _pulled_ , she chirred in her sleep, turned, and twined herself around him beneath the furs.

His heart clenched at the sound and he tilted his down to peer at her. Aurum’s hair was a mess, and barely came up over the edge of the furs on his – _their_ – bed. Her face was buried in his neck, and her body was pressed as close to his as possible. She had been away from him mere moments before, but somehow Aurum had managed to worm her way up against him, wedging herself into every little crevasse of his form.

It was an apt description for more than one thing, really.

She had not been in his life. And then she was. And now they would never be parted. Cullen was no fool, and he knew that the sex wouldn't be enough to forge a true connection between them for the rest of their lives. Because he was hers and she was his from now until they both breathed their last.

He tightened his grip on her, trying to not be surprised or shocked at the idea now that the pleasant buzz of stealing, marrying, _taking_ , had faded into...this moment. A strange elvhen woman, unlike anything he had ever encountered before, was his wife. His. Wife.

The Gods had asked it of them both, and while Cullen could not deny that they were compatible in the bed, and that she had yet to give him reason for pause, they had only truly known each other in the context of bedding.

How would she be in the morning? In the days after? There were still so many things to do – there was still the matter of the Dalish wedding and whatever that entailed beyond having sex with her in public, and Cullen had no point of reference other than a single conversation that was only a conversation as to what sort of woman she was.

She was his woman, no matter what. They were bonded and all but inseparable.

“Mmmm, Cullen?” she rasped, her voice rough from sleep and overuse the hours before.

Aurum stirred, pulling away to look up at him. Her eyes were bleary and only half-focused on him, and she seemed loath to move out from beneath the comfort of furs.

“I didn’t mean to wake you, wife-mine.”

She made the same manner of chirring sound and nuzzled her face against his neck.

“I sleep lightly, falon’saota. The I’ve’an – the Fade - is easily disturbed by others. I’m not used to it yet.”

He blinked.

“The dream-lands?” he asked, for clarification.

“I…well yes, but more than that. They are dreams and memories and reflections all. Everyone has an imprint in the dream-lands. I’m not used to being so close to another while they dream,” Aurum explained sleepily, shrugging the furs up higher over her ears as she spoke.

“You did not sleep with any other?” he asked, his voice breaking midway through the question.

“I can’t tell if you’re speaking literally or figuratively, Cullen. Human tongues are still hard in that regard. I have had sex with other elvhen before. You would be the first human, but that shouldn’t be surprising. I’ve never slept next to someone in the same aravel or bed before. Mages generally sleep apart.”

“Oh.”

Aurum seemed perfectly content to curl herself closer to his body, however unaccustomed to it she was.

“Why are you-?”

“You’re _very_ warm. I like it. I don’t…you are not…I don’t know. I didn’t think this would be comfortable. I don’t have…”

Her voice trailed off as she relaxed back against him. Cullen _was_ warmer than any other elf could be, and the heat he provided, along with the warmth from the furs did contrast nicely with the overall chill in the air. It was comfortable, soothing. Yes, perhaps she was still a little frazzled from all the sex, and yes, she knew that pair bonded humans slept together and that this was by no means unusual for the Avvar, but she found herself quite amendable to this shared bed situation.

“Aurum?”

She stirred briefly, sighing.

“Wha?”

“Your toes are cold.”

She huffed at him, wiggling up just far enough so she could look him square in the eye. In the dim light of night, her eyes still glowed. He started and she grinned tightly.

“Don’t -” he warned, already seeing the mischief brewing in her eyes. “- _even-_ ”

She grabbed him around his waist, slung a leg over his hip and then all at once there were ice-cold toes pressed into the hollow on the back of his knee. He yelped in a manner quite undignified for the Thane of a Hold, let alone one legend-marked like him, and turned quickly onto his back, pinning her leg in place, but freeing his arms to reach up to grab at her. Aurum laughed and pressed herself flat against him, capturing his protesting lips with her own, teasing her tongue against his.

Cullen groaned, feeling the stirrings of desire starting again.

“Warm me up, serah,” she purred, nipping his lip indelicately.

Cullen growled at her, playful, but warning. He was not…it had only been hours since he had had her last, and there she was, rolling her hips against his, sighing and biting at his kiss-bruised lips hard enough to make pleasure burst through the pain.

“We need to sleep for the morning, Aurum,” he said far more coolly than he felt.

“But I am _cold_ , serah,” she whined, pushing herself up on his chest and pouting down at him.

The furs that had been covering them both fell away, revealing her naked body bathed in moonlight. Cullen shuddered at the sight, and then shivered as the cold near-winter air settled on his skin.

“Then get beneath the furs,” he grit out, looking away from her pebbled nipples and the stippling of marks from his mouth across her chest.

Her plumped lower lip wobbled out, and with a dramatic sigh, she collapsed down on top of him.

Spirits, she _was_ cold, Cullen realized. Her body was chill against his, not uncomfortably so, like her toes, but still noticeable. He held the furs up so she could wiggle back down his body and curl against him to leech heat from him again, but Aurum wiggled lower, until she was completely beneath the furs, and not even a single strand of hair was visible. Confused for just a moment, Cullen readjusted himself in the bed, trying to give her more space.

Aurum pressed her palm flat against his hip, and he felt her body slide across his legs until she was comfortably in between them. Briefly, he considered telling her to stop, that this wasn’t the time, but then he felt her mouth press against his thigh.

He gasped sharply when he felt her tongue lave a wet stripe up his hipbone. He thought he heard her chuckle, but before he could pull the furs up to scold her, he felt her fingers ghost across his prick. It wasn’t as if he wasn’t already aching and hard for her, but he was serious about needing sleep for the both of them.

“Ah-ahrum! Gods, fucking _Korth_!”

Not being able to see her made everything feel more – _more_. Her breath felt hot against his skin, and she was taunting him. She was taunting him with the teasing drag of her lips against everything except his cock. Her teeth rasped his skin, and then her tongue would soothe the heated almost-wounds, and then her lips would press a wet, messy kiss there. Impatiently, he jerked his hips up when he thought her mouth was maybe over his cock, and all he got for his efforts was the muffled chuckling of his wife in response.

“Aurum, fucking – just – fuck _Aurum_!”

She stopped her slow torture, and pushed herself back up atop him, crawling up his body, leaving a trail of kisses in her wake. Cullen groaned, biting his lip as he felt her legs settle on either side of hips.

“Serah?” she purred as she nipped at his collarbones. “I am so _cold_ serah.”

Aurum rocked her hips against his, letting him feel the wet spread of her lower lips against his cock. He grit his teeth and tried to blink the arousal out of his eyes. He needed to –

“H- _how_ do you want to be warmed up, then?” he growled, moving to push her or pull her, just move her so he could get around to pleasing her like she so desperately seemed to want.

But Aurum’s grin against his chest was wicked, and he felt magic stirring around her. His hands were pushed off her hips and pressed against the bed, his legs straightened out and he was held immobile.

“I can think of a few ways, but you didn’t want to, so you’re going to lay here and be warm for me, instead,” Aurum said, with a long sigh.

Cullen groaned, and then chuckled. He tried to pull against the magic, and Aurum tsk’d at him.

“What now, Cullen?” she sighed, her irritation over-emphasized with the roll of her body against his.

“How am I supposed to keep you warm if I can’t hold you, wife-mine?”

Her response was a puff of air and a nip to his neck. But the magic holding his arms down slackened, and she let him hold her against his chest.

“You would be warmer if I could hold you beneath me. Keeping you warm is my job, after all.”

Cullen pulled on the magical bonds that held his legs down as demonstration, making a plaintive whining sound under his breath as Aurum grinded herself down on his cock.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he breathed as she slowly dragged her dripping seam up and down the length of his cock. “Oh, oh _fuck_ , _please._ ”

She was tormenting him and she knew it. He already felt over-warm, but when he ran his hands down her arms, she was still chill.

“M’cold, Cullen,” Aurum whispered against his neck. The magic that held him in place slackened. “Warm me up.”

He turned her slowly onto her back, laying his body over hers. Cullen was very careful to keep the furs in place over them both, pulling them the slightest bit higher over his neck and shoulders to make certain that no cold drafts upset his willingly wild elvhen wife.

Slowly this time, he slid into her, and slowly, slowly, so as not to disturb the furs and chill her, he rocked in time with her. They weren’t fucking, not like before, fueled by alcohol and lust. Aurum sighed in time with his thrusts, and alternated between staring up at him and closing her eyes as he let his heat soak into her.

He was careful not to put too much pressure on her, or to accidentally squish her with his weight, leaving her to lie beneath him, one leg hiked up over his hip. She reached up to brush hair out of his eyes, and caught his gaze with hers. For a moment, her heart stuttered in her chest, and Cullen felt his heart trip as well. Breathless despite the ease of their movements, Cullen’s hips snapped sharply against hers once more before he came _hard_ , his world pinpointing down to her for the briefest of moments.

Aurum arched her back up, overwhelmed all at once with pleasure that scorched her fiercely enough to ignite fire in her chest.

Cullen slowly lowered himself down until his chest was pressed against hers. Loathe to leave her, he gently pressed a kiss to her brow, only for Aurum to make a small sound of displeasure and lean up to kiss him properly. Cullen purred at her, carefully sliding off of her to the side, back to where he had been laying before.

“Warmer, now?”

“Mmm, yes, thank you, husband.”

* * *

Surprisingly, when Cullen awoke in the morning, Aurum was nowhere in his room. Blearily, he sat up, looking around to see if she was admiring herself in the mirror, or trying on new clothes, but she was not there, either.

Confused, and mildly concerned, he dressed for his morning, wondering where his wife could be. The Hold sounded as busy as it ever did in the mornings, and if he judged the time correctly, the hunters would be returning soon. He should be there to greet them.

He took a moment to look at himself in the mirror his parents had gifted him, and was surprised again to see a dearth of his wife’s bruises on his skin. She was a mage, it wasn’t anything too far outside the realm of possibility for her to have healed him before leaving the room. Not that he would have minded walking about his Hold with his wife’s mouth imprinted on his skin. But he would have to find Aurum in order to talk about it with her.

And oh did he ever look forward to talking with her again. Maybe push her into one of the secluded corners of the Hold, have her out in the open air. The thought distracted him near enough to not catch Dorian’s shout of greeting across the open courtyard of the Hold as he passed by the currently empty holdbeast’s den. The great mountain lion must have gone to hunt. Slowly, Cullen turned to his Augur, not wanting to be too distracted from his quest to find his wife and show her some of the more…intimate nooks and crannies of his Hold.

“Your woman went out hunting. The men wouldn’t let her with them, and she seemed insistent. Grabbed a bundle of wood, slung it over her shoulder and headed out with only her belt knife.”

“Shamans hunt in the Dalish Clans?”

“She seemed offended anyone assumed she could not hunt. Highly, uh, offended,” Dorian said with a gesture to an unseasonable patch of frost. “She went out on her own not five minutes after they had gone. Said she’d probably be longer than them but did not explain why.”

Cullen frowned, looking sharply back to Dorian.

“And you let her leave? She’s not been around here, she doesn’t know – did anyone make the proper sacrifices for her?”

Dorian rolled his eyes.

“No, Thane, I let your wife wander away without making the appropriate sacrifices for her. While you were away, I also let the goats all die and the holdbeast chew on some blood lotus, just for fun.”

Cullen growled, and Dorian clearly did not think anything of the implicit threat. The augur shooed him away, letting the Thane meander towards where the women were gathered to welcome the hunters home. He always greeted his men when they returned from a hunt, to offer them his blessing for whatever they had brought home.

It was almost time, and while the women cooed at him for being so very caught up with his woman for the past long while, Cullen did his best to not appear as if he were looking to the wilderness outside his Hold for sight of his wife.

Hunting was no easy sport, and hunting without a group, hunting without a proper weapon, all of it increased the danger tenfold and tenfold again. He had only just married the woman and he was already hovering uncertainly at the entrance to his Hold, waiting for her to come back to him.

He bit his lip and worried it as the hunters began to return. As they had been in recent months, the hunters’ return was only with enough food to perhaps get the Hold through the next week if they leaned heavily on the reserves they had. There was little hope of winter survival if things continued as they did. The Gods had asked him to marry Aurum and he had done so. Cullen was not so self-centered to expect that everything would be fixed immediately after dedicating himself to the elvhen woman, but…Gods he had hoped for more.

The women moved to the carcasses brought home by the hunters, and Cullen went to speak with the Hunters. He needed to know how the hunts were going from their point of view in order to know what, exactly to ask Dorian about. Sure, the hunters would speak with the other shamans in turn, but he was Thane, and not for no reason. He was legend-marked, touched by the Gods and given a wife as gift to his Hold.

The hunters spoke to him as they usually did. There was game, yes, but it seemed fewer and further between than it had even before the marriage. There was no explanation for it. Nowhere on their territory could they find game enough for what was needed. It was worrisome, for sure. Winter would come soon, and without enough food stored, there would be death, starvation, and abdication.

This would not be Cullen's first winter, but it was the first one that had him concerned for the loss of his people and their way of life. No good Thane would allow his people to die in the winter months. Winter was their lifeblood, winter was their strength. He could not lose anyone in Winter, or come Spring, he may have no Hold to govern. His people deserved more.

His talk with the hunters went on for a good long while, and while they had nothing new to report, each of the men in turn seemed very pleased to have their Thane's attention. As much as he tried to keep them focused on talking about the hunt and what they had seen, many of them needled him for information about his strange new wife who would demand a spot on the hunt while armed with nothing more than a belt-knife.

Still embroiled in conversation, when the wall-crier shouted that the Thane's Wife was returning, everyone near the gates turned to regard what the little lithe elvhen woman would bring back. The hunters had only had meager success.

That clearly was not a problem for Aurum.

Beside her, the great beast of their hold walked, solemnly and silently, its mouth covered in the blood from its own hunt. From wrist to shoulder, Aurum was covered in blood. Her mouth bore the trackings of blood as well, tracing down her neck, mimicking the pale red tattoos that already marked her skin. Behind her, a sled laden with the meat, bones, fur, and offal of at least two deer, cleaned and ready for preparation by smoke, fire, tanner, or craftsman.

She pulled the sled with a simple handmade length of cordage, and made it look easy.

Cullen stared, with the rest of his Hold, as Aurum shrugged the cordage off her shoulders, turned to the sled, and picked out the heart of one of her kills. Kneeling, she offered the heart to the hold-beast, murmuring Dalish words beneath her breath as she made the appropriate venerations of her people. Delicately, the great cat took the heart, ate it in a single bite, and then walked on to its den.

Aurum rose, shook her head, sniffed. Her clothes were not meant for such cold air and she had, perhaps, been out too long. Her fingers were cold and sticky from the blood that covered them, but hunting was messy work.

Cullen stepped closer to her, awed that she had done this. It was not enough food, not enough, but more.

“I did not realize the hunting was sparse around here. I have told Deshanna. My Clan should be bringing more by within a few days, and investigating the source of the animal's dissapearance. Is this pleasing, husband?” she asked as he walked closer to her.

The Hold was holding its breath, waiting for their Thane's reaction to his wife hunting and returning covered in blood.

“ _Very_ ,” he growled, reaching for her, pulling her flush to him, so she could feel the jut of his cock hard against her hips. “Very pleasing, wife.”

Aurum grinned, flashing bloodstained teeth, and Cullen swept in to kiss her. Blood tainted the taste of her mouth, but it didn't matter to Cullen in that moment. He had Aurum, and while the marriage and sex had been heady enough on their own, an even more decadent emotion had begun to steal into his heart, replacing the worry that had wormed through his entirety - 

_Hope_ .


	10. To Bathe

Aurum did not step away from him, letting him hold her close as he tried to put his new feelings into words. There was a lot of emotion warring within him, and it did not help to have his _wife_ standing in his arms, smelling of blood and a successful hunt. He dipped his head to kiss her, reveling in the copper tang of blood against his lips, and when she opened her mouth to his tongue, he could taste magic on her breath still.

“Cullen,” she whispered.

He pulled her tighter to him, and her hands came up to leave smears of blood across his cheeks and forehead. Her fingers danced ancient patterns against his skin, marking him as neatly as she had been marked, once upon a time. Cullen leaned into her every touch, not wanting to move his mouth from hers, but he could feel the magic humming in her skin, and the call of her song. Aurum stepped away from him, and he whimpered at her loss.

He absentmindedly reached for her when she turned away from him, wanting nothing more than to pull her close once again. Aurum cupped her hands around his, stroking her thumbs across the backs of his knuckles, leaving bloody smears in the wake of her fingers. He looked down at his hands, touched with hunting blood, then traced the trail of blood up her arms, across her chest, down her throat, back to her mouth, where the blood was smeared in the shape of his mouth.

His heart clenched. Cullen could not think of any one thing he wanted more than her.

“Wife, we should -”

“Where is the bath, my husband?”

The question stilled his breath. The baths. She wanted the blood off of her, undoubtedly, and he could understand that. But she…but he…he wanted her like _this._

“This, uh…way,” he mumbled, not letting her hands free.

Aurum followed behind him elegantly, letting him have the lead as he walked her through the Hold. Her hand was cool in his. He felt like he was burning up, and to have his wife following behind him, the air around her thick with power and the scent of the hunt made deep ravenous desires well up in his chest.

Every house and building they passed was a test of the strength of his will to resist turning on her and pinning her against the wood, sinking her fingers into her hair, slanting his mouth against hers, and taking her like a beast. She smelled like wilderness and it roused the legend-marked blood that beat in his chest. He wanted to take her. Mark her. Claim her.

She was his wife. She was already his. But he wanted to renew that claim he had lain upon her chest. She was _his_.

“Husband, I still belong you, quiet your thoughts, my darling.”

Aurum stepped up closer behind him, running her fingers across the back of his neck, leaning in to ghost her breath across his overheated flesh. He froze, tense beneath her touch.

“ _Aurum_ ,” he growled, a warning bubbling up in the back of his throat.

“Have you ever fucked in the baths, ma’vheraan?” she asked, her voice full of laughter.

Cullen nearly fell over at that, stumbling to catch himself as the promise in her words. She was – of course she was. She was a hunter, and he had been on many hunts before becoming Thane, he knew the way the heat raced in the hunt and then burned in the time after. She had been hunting and now was back _home_ with _him_.

“No, but I’m going to fuck you in them now, for damned sure.”

He pulled her along behind him much quicker now, urgency coming from the way his cock jutted harshly against his trousers, the way even the slightest tightening of her hand in his made his heart race. Each step brought him closer to where he wished to be, but it also made him burn the brighter for her.

From behind him, he heard her giggle, heard her murmur his name, felt the whispering of her magic against his skin, taunting him with closeness that he could not yet take. The Thane of a Hold was rarely one to interrupt when they wished to be somewhere, and this was one of the few moments where Cullen could broker no thought for allowing someone to stop him. Wisely, no one tried.

His Hold was lucky enough to have been established over a natural hotspring. The water was clear and wonderfully hot. When the winters came, the elders with aching joints could be found soaking in the water or luxuriating in the heavy steam, often fragranced with fir or juniper boughs. When one of the shamans needed purification for a ritual, or to cleanse themselves, they would use it as well. The water from the springs reserved for drinking made excellent teas and broth-bases. Much of his Hold's continued existence were due to these springs.

Cullen didn't care much for any of that right then, however. He had his wife trailing behind him, her hand in his, smelling of blood and the hunt and he wanted her.

Gods above, he _wanted_ her.

The spring's entrance was the wide mouth of a cave, and the suddenly much warmer and muggier air felt like a slap. Aurum shivered hard enough for Cullen to feel her tremor travel up his own arm, and he was very, very quick to pull her along the last handful of steps to the special hot spring that his Hold had reserved for his own, personal use.

That had, at one point, been something he had been uncomfortable with – that the members of his Hold were willing to allot him an entire spring, entirely for himself. In the years since his Thaneship, he had grown more accustomed to it. And right now, he was very happy to have the spring to himself. The door that barred all else but him from passing was kicked open, and then slammed shut behind the both of them.

Aurum was anticipating her husband's lunge at her as soon as the door was closed. What she had not anticipated was him sweeping her clean off of her feet, lifting her just high enough so he could place her indelicately upon the table she was certain was meant to bear clothing or something less substantial than her full weight. But there she was, perched atop a table, her husband slanting his mouth across hers.

His arousal sang a scorching beat in her ears, and she surrendered to the tide of it all. Hunting, fucking, all of it came from the same deep-sat instinct that made her bones ache. She yielded to him, letting him push her down flat against the table. She submitted to the movement, delighting in the heavy press of his body against hers. He kissed her like his life depended on their intimacy, moaning lasciviously as he tasted blood on her teeth.

Aurum didn’t bother trying to muffle her own response, keening desperately, clawing at his clothing, rolling her body against his, impatient and aching all at once. He fumbled with his vest, focusing first on getting her own tunic off, or at least rucked high enough that he could lean down to latch his mouth over one of her nipples and cup her other breast in his hand. Aurum scrambled for something to hold onto, settling for reaching back to grab the edge of the table with one hand to give her some leverage against him.

Cullen slid a hand down her waist, across her hips, somehow finding space enough to slide his hand down to rip the lacing of her trousers free. Aurum lifted her hips, pressing them against his questing fingers as they slowly slid down her body until he found her little pearl again. Aurum’s moan was long and low, a deep reverberating sound that ripped an answer from Cullen’s chest. He pinched at her pearl just hard enough to get her to hiss some angry Dalish curse that made his skin feel like it was aflame, and then his fingers slid inside of her.

Her cunt clamped down on his fingers desperately, fluttering, pulsing, pulling his fingers deeper into her, and Cullen’s hips gave a ragged jerk against the hard wood of the table. The pain of driving… _sensitive_ flesh against the harsh grain of the wood gave him the moments of clarity he needed to yank her trousers down. The clarity vanished rather quickly when he caught sight of her beautiful slick slit glistening in the candlelight. Even having spent what felt like hours with his mouth on her, he was still caught up in beauty of the folds of her lower lips. Flushed nearly red, puffy with need, slick with want, his wife’s cunt was dripping arousal onto the tabletop.

He needed to have his mouth on her again.

The Thane of Kingshold knelt before his wife, as reverent as he had ever been for the Gods. She looked as one in that moment, to him. Drenched in blood, wild and untamed from the hunt, bearing tattoos and markings he still did not know the meaning of, Aurum looked as a God and he was eager to worship.

The markings she had painted upon his face with the blood of her kills was nearly dry now, and as he leaned forward, he felt some of it flake away. Aurum hissed at that, her eyes suddenly narrowed. Quickly, she swiped her thumb through the last patch of still-wet blood by her mouth and fixed the line that had been so egregiously altered. Cullen only moved again when she leaned back, sweeping in close to press kisses against the silvered lightning-mark lines that decorated the widest curve of her thighs. Muscle and fat both, stretching her skin in years past. The sign of growing power too great for a smaller body, among the Avvar, the lines captivated his attention for the few moments it took to lavish them with his affection.

Aurum purred at him, ruffling his hair as he moved slowly towards the crux of her thighs. He was in no great hurry, content in the moment to be slow, despite the need that blistered his skin. Well, he thought he could be patient and teasing until she jerked her hips against his questing palm and whimpered his name. He bit back a curse, whispered a prayer, and pressed his mouth to her slit. Cullen felt the tremor pass through her body, and then the tingle of her magic alighting on his scalp before sliding down his sweat-slicked back.

It was hot in the cave, courtesy of the steaming spring behind them, and the burning need in them. He buried his face in her sweet, sweet cunt, not bothering to rise for air unless he needed to moan her name – which he did often as she tugged his hair, rolled her hips and let her magic slide across his skin in time with his tongue’s movements inside of her cunt. Her not-at-all-muffled sounds of pleasure were muddied by the tensing of her gloriously muscled thighs around his head as his rhythm picked up.

His mouth and chin were drenched with her gushing nectar not too far into his worship and Cullen rather decided quickly that if this was the ambrosia of his wife-worshipped-as-divine, he would sup greedily from the fountain whenever she was so gracious as to allow him the pleasure of it.

He played her body like the instrument it was, and was rewarded with a brief swipe of her hands across his ears. Their song exploded through him, and his free hand dove down to the laces of his trousers, plucking ineffectively at first, and then pulling and tearing with wild abandon because Aurum was moaning his name louder and louder, gasping for breath, calling out to her Gods and to _him_ in equal turns. His name was amongst the ones that fell from her lips in an orgasmic litany. Mythal, Elgar’nan, Anduril, _Cullen_! Fenharel’s teeth, June’s blade, Dirthamen’s raven, _Cullen_ your _mouth!_

He suckled her pearl, daring to look up at his wife as he sank the fingers of one hand into her and wrapped the fingers of the other around his over-engorged, over-sensitive, over-heated prick. At first, Cullen only wanted to stave off his own orgasm – the pleasure he felt building in his gut was overwhelming and he wanted nothing more than to loose his seed in her willing depths. But the sensation of his own hand on his cock sent a lance of need through his gut, and all too quickly he found himself warring with the want to cum and the want to _not_ cum _yet_ all while still unwilling to move away from Aurum.

Not that she made it at all feasible to move away. She locked her ankles in place behind his back, pulling her knees up to force him closer, tighter, deeper, closer, because she was chasing the same high he was.

He smelled burning wood, and saw curls of smoke from the corner of his vision. Fire leapt around the hand she had pressed to the table, and while Cullen was rather convinced that he should be _concerned_ with her maybe setting the table on fire and maybe also setting him on fire, he was far more entranced by the beauty that was Aurum trembling above him, her body wracked with pleasure _he_ was bringing her.

“Ma’vheraan, sathan, **sathan**!” she panted, Common clearly now beyond her grasp.

Some small part of Cullen remembered _vheraan_ and how she had said it in place of _Lion_ once. Sathan…that was please. He knew that too.

He circled her pearl with his tongue, watching her seize and writhe in time with his slow movements, watched the way her eyes rolled as he curled his fingers inside of her and ran the pads of his fingers against the spongey part of her inner walls. She choked on his name, keened “elvar’el! Neralis!”, bared teeth sharper than they had any other right to be, and panted desperately, rocking her hips harder and harder against his mouth and fingers. The hand she had placed, at one time casually, atop his head tightened its grip and she pulled him tighter to her cunt, as if she wanted to drown him with her juices.

It would be a sweetest death, Cullen decided.

He jerked his hand unevenly over his cock, unable to stop himself from chasing his pleasure now that she was riding ever heightening crests of her own. He felt her rubbing herself against his jaw and nose, writhing deliciously against him. Gods, he wanted to fuck her, but he couldn’t stop the delving of his tongue or long pulls of his hand over his cock. He just wanted pleasure, and he found it in the curl of his fingers inside of her, the stuttering moan of his name out of her throat, and the intimate way her fingers slid down to rub the top of his earlobe.

Cullen knew the gesture meant more than he could understand, knew that she was saying more than just the words he couldn’t translate.

She cried out, sharp and high, arching against him, and her song burst through with a symphony of pleasure so acute that Cullen’s world went grey and white around the edges as his own orgasm shot through him.

He could only muster vague awareness as he came, as Aurum came, and he gasped for air. For a long, long while he tried to catch his breath with her, resting his face against one of her thighs, as she slowly unwound her legs from his head and lay back against the table.

With a muttered “ _fuck_ ”, she patted out the smouldering embers from the previous fire hazard moment, but made no grand movements to get up.

Cullen rose painfully, his back and neck and knees aching in ways that reminded him of the age he had gained already. Still, he shook the pain away and finished stripping out of his clothing. Aurum merely watched, her elvhen eyes glinting in the dim light of his – _their_ private spring. When he reached for her, she demurred coyly, gesturing to her few remaining articles of clothing, and despite the ache in his knees and the burn in the small of his back, Cullen knelt before her again, graciously stooping to finish disrobing her, soothing the small reddened marks left by his half-there scruffy beard across her thighs with gentle kisses.

It was only when Aurum was as naked as he that she reached down to crook her finger behind his ear and coax him back up to kiss her. He did not hesitate, rising quickly to press his lips against hers. Her tongue was quick to dart out and taste her nectar on his mouth and chin, and her coquettish response to his warning growl was a brief, if nearly painful, nip to the apex of the apple of his throat.

Cullen lifted her a second time, just as easily as he had done in the first instance. Aurum twined her legs about his waist, tensing her muscles just enough to stay in place as he walked them into the springs.

Contrasted to the chill outside, the springs were hot, and no matter how much they had been exerting themselves, the hot water was still shocking enough to get a grunt from Cullen and a drawn-out hiss from Aurum. She wriggled out of his grasp as soon as he was at the deepest point of the spring. He let her go, and watched as she sank down into the water until her nose was just about level with the water. Surprisingly, she blew bubbles, acting more in that moment like a young child than the ferocious mage-wife to the Thane of Kingshold.

He still sank down to be on the same level she was, and was swiftly rewarded with a peck on his cheek.

The springs were not deep enough for either of them to truly swim, by any meaning of that word, but Aurum did glide around in the water, happily humming under her breath as she luxuriated in the hot water. On her next pass by, Cullen reached out to wrap and arm around her waist and pull her back in close to him. Aurum chirred at him, playfully stretching and making a halfhearted attempt to get away. When Cullen pulled her tighter to him and growled a response, she huffed but relented to his desire to have her close, looping an arm around the back of his neck and nuzzling his cheek.

“Wife, we should bathe properly sometime today,” he mumbled as she kissed the side of his face.

With a mighty sigh and roll of her eyes, she leaned up just enough to press a kiss to his ear.

“Ara’isha, husband, my man, I have hunted well. Yes?”

Her breath was heavy in his ear, and he remembered all of the taboos he had been told of – Aurum had seemed almost uncomfortable with him touching her ears before, but this was now becoming something obviously distinctly elvhen-y and he was uncertain.

“Yes, dör, you have.”

Aurum laughed.

“Dör? Dear? Husband, how kind.”

“ _Gis_ , yes. Cullensi,” he grumbled, not liking the laughter he found in her voice. If she was going to drape elvhen words that he did not know into her language, he was going to do the same.

“Cullensi?”

“My wife. Cullen’s wife,” he elaborated, breath catching as – _again_ – she teased his ear with her mouth.

“Ah. So rough, your tongue.”

“You did not think so moments ago,” Cullen replied, only the slightest bit petulant at her lighthearted insults.

Aurum laughed, twining the longer strands of his hair around her fingers.

“Elvar’aan tua rosa'nu'da'din'enal.”

“Come now, that’s hardly fair.”

“Your tongue. Hard enough to cause the sweet pain of cumming too much.”

Cullen grunted, unsure of if that was good or bad, but still rather enjoying the idea of making that happen again. And again. And again.

He shook his head.

“Are you thinking of something desirous, my husband?”

“I am holding my naked wife in my spring after she has come home from the first successful hunt in many attempts. Yes. I am thinking very desirous things, woman.”

Aurum shifted in his grip and with a gentle push, guided him backwards until his back hit the rough-hewn edge of the spring. Her legs were back in place around his waist, and her grin was wicked once more. It merely took a few short rocking moments of her hips against his for Cullen to feel the pull of desire again.

“I am not a young man anymore – not as young as I once was, at the very least. You expect much of me, Aurum.”

“Isalal mar’paladahl inor’em, _Cullen_.”

“You’ll need to –ah!- use Common, wife.”

The neediness in her tone did not need to be translated, however. His cock was already hardening again, already straining for her to sink down onto it. Cullen did not get much of a response from his wife, who was busy rocking against his cock, sighing with delight as she felt him swell and stiffen with her every move.

“ _Aurum-_ ” he started, fully intending to elicit some manner of explanation from her, but she was deviously quick with her hips and seated his cock inside of her with an ease that should have been, perhaps, less arousing than he found it.

(it had only been days, why did it feel already as if there was never to be anyone else who could quell the need that now lived in his blood)

Her moan was soft and delicate, and she did not move to rock her body against him. For the moment, she was content enough to simply be _full_ of her avvish lover. A deep, animalistic need in her was satiated and quieted with just this, and she had no further desire than to have that need met just then.

Cullen had to reach backwards for stability against the edge of the spring. His body – his everything was urging speed and haste – to take her like a beast, rut her and fuck her until he was certain she would be fat with child within the next months. Exhausted though he was, and despite all they had been doing in the past days, despite that every last part of him should have _already_ been satisfied, simply having her rest so easily on his cock was not…enough.

“I… _ahn…_ need…I lust for your cock in me, Cullen,” Aurum moaned, finally explaining her elvhen words.

 _Ah, fuck, then_ , would be Cullen’s last rational thought for a long while after that. If his wife needed, then by the Gods above and Spirits below, he would give, until she could take no more.

And it did rather turn out that no matter how slender the elvhen appeared to be when contrasted with the Avvar, an elvhen lover could take quite a bit while still begging for more.

Not, mind you, that Cullen actually found this troublesome.

It just meant longer baths for the foreseeable future.


	11. To Talk of A Child

Somehow Cullen managed to peel Aurum off of him long enough to get them both redressed and heading back towards the Great Hall and their rooms after another three hours of bathing and assorted 'other' activities. He was exhausted and it was barely even an hour past noon. Exhausted and satisfied and deeply in want of a nap.

How long had it been since he had napped in the middle of the day, even? But here he was, wandering through his Hold with his wife on his arm, looking very forward to the prospect of a midday chance to sleep.

Aurum was looking around the Hold with interest. Not asking questions just yet, but her sharp gaze picked out certain small curiosities she would have to remember to ask her Avvish husband about later on. Many things were odd to her, not the least of which was the different shapes of different houses and structures. The Avvar did many things differently than her people did, and now that she was no longer going to travel with her Clan (the thought did make her heart sting), she needed to start learning how the Avvar lived.

It was different. So very different.

It was all going to be different for her. For the rest of her life, her life was going to be different. No aravels, no travelling with the changing of the seasons, no races through thunderstorms, none of it. Not anymore. The Avvar did not do things as the Dalish did and she was wounded by that. Her hand tightened on his arm briefly, and she swallowed down the panic and terror that had suddenly touched her heart.

Cullen dipped his head down to press a kiss against the crown of her head, pulling her in close to him for just a brief moment longer. Aurum knew the movement was meant to be comforting, but in that moment, however, it only rankled. She wanted freedom and her way of living and this was not it. This was good sex and a promise to never leave. Never, ever, leave.

She shook her head when he pulled away, and he paused.

“Is…something bothering you, Aurum?” he asked gently.

For a long moment, she said nothing. They stood still as the Hold moved around them.

“Yes. It will pass. It is nothing of note.”

Cullen made a small sound of distress and moved to hold her close. Aurum tensed in his arms, and he was quick to release her.

“Not…now, Cullen, please,” she said firmly.

His face twisted down into a frown, but he did step away from her.

“Have I upset you?”

“No. Not – it wasn’t you, specifically. As I said. It will pass. I just need a moment. May I see the other mages?”

“…Of course.”

* * *

“This is where the shamans do their work,” Cullen said softly, pointing to one of the very many buildings in the Hold. “If they’re busy, I cannot go in. I can be…disruptive, I’m told.”

Aurum blinked, remembering the moment of their chase when Cullen had bulled through her magic as if it was not there. Then, it had been exhilarating to see, but now, it only served to rankle her the slightest bit more. Everything she had known was different now and there was no real way to turn back. She had so much to get used to, so much to learn and unlearn about what her life was going to be so that she could be a good Wife to this Avvish man.

“I can believe that,” she offered when she realized her silence had gone on overlong.

Cullen smiled down at her, and she could not help the way she smiled back. Their songs were intertwined, and if she tuned out the world at large, she could still hear it, humming in the background, with the songs of all the others she had known. The song of her Clan, however, was fading, far and further from her as her Clan took refuge elsewhere. Her sacrifice here was protecting them, she knew that. She knew that this was the best for the Clan, and she did her service with pride, but that couldn’t help against the sudden sharp feeling of loss in her chest, or the way her eyes pricked with tears.

She grit her teeth, turning sharply away. There was no time for this. No time for tears or any of this because she was going to be married in truth in a matter of weeks and she _had_ to come to terms with what was going to be the rest of her life. She was to be married to this shemlen Avvish man for the betterment of her Clan. She had a purpose in that, she had a directive and a drive in that, but –

Cullen’s hand came up and his thumb gently, gently brushed the forming tear out of the corner of her eye.

“Wife mine, what is wrong? You are upset.”

“Yes, but it will pass, husband,” she snapped, jerking her head away from his hand. Shameful enough to tear up, but she did not need him mocking her moment of weakness like that.

Cullen grumbled something in quick Avvish that Aurum couldn’t translate quick enough, and before she could ask what he meant he was bending down over her to press his mouth hungrily against hers. Startled, it took her a moment to recognize his actions, but it was still her husband kissing her, and it was their _song_ that burst through her head, bright and shining with its clarity. She kissed him back, a half-broken mewl escaping her chest when he finally pulled away from her.

“It will pass sooner if you tell me what is bothering you.”

She huffed and looked away.

“It is nothing.”

“It is _not_ nothing.”

Aurum growled, and Cullen let her step away from him. She obviously needed space and it did not matter how much he pressed, she was not going to tell him anything until she actually wanted to.

“It is not nothing,” she conceded after a long moment.

“Then what _is_ it?” he pressed.

“This is different for me, Cullen. The houses, the Hold. The one place of living, the never moving, the way everything works, your mages and shamans and augurs and air and life, it is all different. It is _very_ different.”

It was his turn to be taken aback. This was how things were for him, this is how his life went, how the world moved. He was Thane, this was his Hold, this was where he lived, this would be where he would raise his children with his beautiful wife. This was everything it had ever been for him, only now it was with the addition of an elvhen woman who made songs from the dream-lands themselves.

“I…had not…thought of that.”

Aurum made a noncommittal sound under her breath. It was not a condemnation, what she said, but it was something to consider that Cullen had not, yet, considered. His life was relatively unchanged. Hers…well, he truthfully did not know much of the Dalish or how the Dalish lived, so he had no way to understand his wife or what it was she could be missing. Other than her entire life. This was the first time she had been away from her Clan. He remembered, belatedly, that she had said that. He had thought, in the moment, he had understood – the first time he had been away from his Hold, it had been a jarring experience, but…it wasn’t like what Aurum was facing.

“As I said. The feeling will pass. This is my life now. I can be happy here.”

“But are you?”

Aurum sighed, rolling her eyes.

“I’ve been here how many days now, Cullen? Compared to the _years_ I spent wandering the wilds with my Clan? It will be a long while before this feels as much of home as my aravel and Clan did. I am not any more unhappy than I would be otherwise. It will pass.”

“You are my _wife_ , Aurum.”

“Duly noted,” she mumbled.

“The Gods would be displeased with a husband that did not do his best to ensure his wife’s happiness. You are my wife, and we share a life from now until the end of days. My duty to you is to ensure your happiness, Aurum.”

She sighed, and did not meet his eyes. Cullen wanted to pry the answer, the truth, out of her. Not this inane back and forth where she did not answer his questions, but merely hinted at the truer answers she was keeping from him. It was not enough for him to have to sit and wonder about what she could mean, and how much more she wasn’t saying. But he couldn’t take the time to question her further because the door to the Shaman’s hold flung open and Dorian appeared, eyes wide.

“Cullen!...Aurum? Nevermind, I need you both!”

The Augur reached out to grab both of them by their wrists and pulled them into the building. Aurum went willingly, and Cullen staggered behind them both. Dorian closed the door behind them before turning to them with a smile on his face.

“We have received portents from the Gods! Powerful ones!”

Dorian was nearly bouncing from excitement, walking further into the sacred space used by the Shamans for their arcane arts. Cullen had only been inside on a few occasions, and only ever by invitation. This place was one of the very few locations within his Hold that he would hesitate at the door of before entering. It practically buzzed with magic to his senses, which was uncomfortable and distracting to his senses, to say the least. By contrast, Aurum seemed very at ease, looking about the place with unabashed interest. This was by far the most interesting thing in the Hold to her.

“We were reading portents, and could not believe the reversal. I made Cole cast his bones three times before I even thought to call you in, but, Cullen! Cullen, the Gods are _singing_ again. The hunting party may have had ill luck, but the spirits themselves say that our fortunes are changing. There’s…some oddities in the readings, some things that don’t quite make sense, but with time, I’m sure we can figure it out.”

Cullen, used to this, nodded along as Dorian went along, talking animatedly about the minutiae of what he had just experienced. Aurum barely listened at all – the musings of their Gods were of very little import to her. She had her own pantheon that she worshipped, and there was very little she was willing to do in order to appease her husband’s Gods. They were his, not her own. She was far more interested in looking around the Shaman’s hut. There was a comforting hum in the air, and the press of spirits against her skin made her feel so _alive_.

She was looking for other mages, eager to see what sort of hierarchy existed and where it was that she would fit in.

Of course, she knew it was the top – she was the Thane’s Wife, and she was to bear the Keeper of this Hold in her body. She was the strongest mage born to the Elvhen in centuries, and she knew that too. She knew many things, but she did not know how the current hierarchy was set up, nor how those who were currently in it would rank up against her in their own world.

She was curious, yes, but she was rather certain her curiosity would be satiated soon.

“…the only thing that we couldn’t understand was the talk of the child.”

Aurum’s ears twitched backwards to try and catch what Dorian was saying without turning her head. She was interested, yes, but not so much so that she would let everyone else around her know just how interested she was. Her child, when they came, would be something the spirits spoke of at length. No matter how these mages spoke to the spirits of the world, whatever would be said of her child would be the stuff of legends in the making.

“There’s a child?! Already?”

Cullen could hardly keep the excitement out of his voice. A child! Already! Certainly he and Aurum had been enjoying each other’s company more than enough for such a thing to already have happened, but a _child_. His child. **_His_** child!

“…In a manner of speaking yes. They talk of Aurum’s child though. Not…yours. And they talk of her child as if she is older. Not a young one, but a near-woman.”

Aurum turned to Dorian, her expression curious. Before Cullen could interject, Aurum chose to speak.

“What do they say of the one they call my child, Tavinte?” ( _Tevinter_ )

Dorian flinched like she had struck him in the mouth, and Cullen blanched.

“How did yo-”

“( _Your people have travelled far, elvhen_ ,)” Dorian said in soft Tevene. Aurum nodded, shrugging a shoulder in deference.

“Shialanen, var vhen.” ( _Travelers, my people._ )

“I had hoped none would talk of it,” the Augur mumbled, running his fingers over a gilded dragon tooth he wore on a cord around his waist.

“I am only noting it. The sins of your people are not your own. You have come far, yourself,” Aurum said gently. She did not bear him any ill will, but it was something to note. Nothing more.

“It was necessary. You know the cruelties.”

“Yes, and they turn ever inward, now that my people are leaving your lands. Your accent is very light. It was nothing you could have done, however. I am the Singer, I could hear it in your magic.”

Dorian nodded. There was a long moment of quiet in the room, as the two mages took stock of the other. Aurum was content to let him look her over. She was confident in who she was, and merely noting that the Augur was not Avvar, but Tevinter, was not anything that would truly bother her. If he chose to resurrect the damage between their people, it would be his choice. She was far removed from the horrors of Tevinter, and her Clan, though only recently ousted from their territorial claimed lands in the Free Marches, had not been entangled in the slaving ways of Tevinter for many generations.

“Nothing changes?”

“I will not tell anyone. You have no reason to fear me, Dorian. What is the news of the child.”

Dorian stared at her, still carefully gauging her reaction. She had caught him critically off-guard, and Cullen, for his part, was still waiting for the culmination of this small altercation. He wanted to know more about the child, he burned to know about this child that was not his, but Aurum’s, and as much as he wanted to know that his Augur was still safe from his wife, the issue of the child was more important to him. He had to know.

Dorian took a stabilizing breath and turned back to Cullen.

“The child is not your child yet, but is already your child. The spirits often speak in riddles, yes, but even this one is hard for us to understand.”

Aurum nodded once, and then swept out of the room, leaving Dorian and Cullen standing next to each other in the heavy atmosphere.

“Is…is the child her blood?” Cullen asked, turning to his friend.

“No and yes. Not yet blood, but will be,” Dorian said, his voice still heavy with the burden of knowing his secret that he and Cullen had worked so hard to keep quiet.

Cullen frowned, trying to understand this. He had never had a gift for understanding the spirits the way Dorian or any shaman could. And this riddle had confused even the shamans.

“Are you well, my friend?”

“…she is very strong to hear magic like that, Cullen. But you do not seem surprised. Why?”

“She told me she was called the Fade-Singer and that she could do such things…”

Dorian tutted beneath his breath and shook his head.

“She is stronger than I thought. To do what she did, so casually…she is dangerous. Powerful, insanely so. I had heard of her power from the Spirits, yes, and they had said much and more of her, but this seems excessive even. There may be no secrets from her. Her power…in the bloodline of your Thaneship, is good, but I fear for what she may find if she looks.”

The Augur was still rubbing his thumb over the tip of the dragon’s tooth that he wore, his mouth drawn down into a thin line.

“Should I be afraid of her?”

“It would do nothing to be fearful. The power she must have would mean that it would not matter.”

“You think I could not manage her?”

Dorian turned away.

“I do not think there is much you could do to manage her if she is truly was intending harm to you. Even if you have the touch of the magic’s bane to you. I do not know how much you could do to her if she truly wished to hurt you or anyone else. Her benignity to us is what keeps her from becoming something that could be truly terrifying.”

The Augur shook his head, sighing at length.

“Honestly, Cullen, I don’t know what to make of this anymore. She was one thing to the Spirits, and another to me in the translation from them. I do not know make of their words anymore. It seems as if your wife brings more questions than answers in the air around her. I wonder now, if this whole situation was orchestrated or if it was organic. If her Clan had a mage as powerful as her, why did they feel the need to come to us, of all Holds for this marriage? It does not make sense.”

“You think that she could be using us?” Cullen asked sharply.

“I think there is more going on than we know. But you are married, for as long as one can be. Unless you and she divorce, we may never know the extent of what brought her to us.”

“I could ask. She is my wife, after all.”

Dorian did laugh at that, shaking his head.

“I think you have more knowledge of the dips and valleys of her breasts and thighs than you do of her thoughts and opinions, friend. You may ask, but how will you know truth from lie? You barely know her at all, and she rather seems as if she could know more of us at a glance.”

Cullen had no response. His friend was right. He did not know much of anything about his wife. Only that her body made his ache with want, and the barest hint of her scent on the wind made him crave her. Could it be magic? Could this be her own doing, a dastardly trick to ensnare him?

But for what purpose? What did his Hold offer this Dalish woman that her freedom did not?

What game could be at play here?

And what did this talk of her _child_ mean?


	12. To Be A Distraction

Cullen left the Shaman’s hut just as confused as he had been when he had entered it, albeit now for much different reasons. Aurum had a daughter…or would have a daughter. A daughter already grown, who was not yet her daughter. His head hurt, and Aurum was nowhere outside for him to try and question. He had work to do, anyway.

Aurum could wait – she would not have gone far. Not really, anyway. She was his wife, and their bed was a shared one. He would see her later in the day. Her nights were his as well. He would see her again, and soon. A not-so-secret trill of thrill shivered through his core as he thought of what his nights could entail now. Nights and mornings and baths and any time he wanted her. Gods save him, that was such a kindness. To have a woman as beautiful as her, just for him. Him and forever his. 

His scouts gestured that they were ready to make a report to him, and Cullen fell easily into the role of Thane once again. It was not an overlong meeting, however by the time he looked up from their work, the sun was beyond the horizon, and the moon was rising, fat and heavy to take its place. His stomach grumbled, reminding him of his hunger a bit belatedly in the day.

With a sigh, he turned to go find his meal for the evening. He had much to do still. His work was never truly done, because the Hold would always need more. It was a living, breathing thing, and as such, always required input. Cullen loved his Hold. He loved his people and he loved being their Thane. But that did not mean it could not wear on him to constantly be at their beck and call.

Sourly, he even thought of how his wife had been chosen for him. Not that he had had any particular urge to marry before, and no woman had caught his attention (despite increasingly desperate attempts), but it had been another choice he had not been allowed in the service of his Hold. He belonged to the Hold and was beholden to their wishes, desires, and needs, no matter how much it asked of him.

He wondered if Aurum understood that. In her own thoughts, did she understand what it meant to be a leader? Her grandmother was in charge of her Clan. Deshanna. Then her mother was next in the heirarchy. _Then_ came Aurum. Had she ever truly felt the crush of responsibility as he had?

Dorian had been right. He knew so little about his wife, and there was nothing he could really do to learn more when she had gone so conspicuously missing from him. It seemed that if he did not have her in his bed, he did not have her at all. A maddening realization, for sure. She was his _wife_ , gods damn it, and the more he thought of her, the less he knew of her, and the more he wanted her anyway. 

The thoughts of **her** child, not his, did rankle as well. Needling thoughts of who else she had been with before him, which elvhen man had taken his wife's womb and planted a child there...who her child was, he did not know or care to know. The Spirits spoke in riddles, but those riddles were still clear about one thing – Aurum had a child and it was not his. Aurum would have a child and it would not be his.

He felt his hands clenching into tight fists. How – _How_ could this be what the Gods wanted of him? A wife whose child was not his own. A wife whose child would not _be_ his own. And he had to just accept that this was what they wanted from him. That he was going to accept this – that he would accept it _gladly_ and take her child in without any other questions.

His anger rose hot in his gut, and try as he might, he could not tamp it down. Not right then. It was an irrational fury, one borne of stress and worry and concern and unfamiliar circumstance. Merely _fucking_ some woman wasn't going to be enough to save his Hold and she had a _child_ by someone else already, so why would the Gods and Spirits see fit to take his hope for a bloodline of his own, a wife of his own choosing from him? He could have had so much -

Someone reached out for him, grabbing him by the wrist and pulling him into the narrow gap between two buildings. Raring for a fight, Cullen was halfway to shouting for his men, reaching for his dagger, but a hand intercepted that wrist too. Music he half-remembered floated through the air, and he found himself pressed up against one of the walls of the thin alleyway, arms pinned behind his back. He couldn’t help the grunt of surprise that the pin knocked out of him.

“Ma’vher _aan_ ,” he heard, purred out of the mouth of the one who had him.

Moments later, the one pinning him had their mouth pressed to the back of his neck. He relaxed only nominally.

It was Aurum. It had to be. 

_My Lion_ , she called him, and he couldn't help the way his heart warmed at the thought. No matter his fury, he still found himself preening beneath her name for him, proud and prouder still that she had claimed him so completely.

He felt her mouth open wide, and then the dozens of pinpricks of her teeth against his skin. Part of Cullen remembered that _snarl_ she had given on their wedding night, and then…certain other parts of Cullen remembered their wedding night. So conflicted, he pulled against her grip, testing it, trying to see if he could get away and talk with her. Aurum’s response was a deep growl, and an increase in the force exerted on the back of his neck by her teeth. 

Cullen blinked quickly, suddenly scrambling in his own thoughts for coherency. The heat in his heart shot through his gut and he felt his body give itself over to the unquestionable pleasure she presented to him at every available moment. Aurum shoved his left hip into the wall, biting down again.

“Mmmmnnnnnnh, _Aurum_ ,” he groaned as she roughly handled him.

Her deft hand pulled his hip away from the wall before driving it back again. Cullen bit back a whine. The pain stuttered his heartbeat, keeping him from being able to gather his thoughts well enough to respond properly. He remembered, vaguely, that he had been angry before this, but he couldn't find his anger anymore. All of it was consumed beneath a rising fog of need.

 _Why_ was this affecting him so much? Why were his knees going weak and his eyes fluttering shut?

Aurum moved her mouth to his right shoulder, and bit down **hard** over where a previous bruise from her mouth had bloomed the night before. His sharp yelp of surprise only gained him a chastising hiss from his… _wife_.

“Silence, husband, or your Hold will hear their Thane mewl for his wife’s touch,” she growled into his shoulder.

He felt a traitorous blush spreading across his cheeks at the thought of anyone coming by and seeing his wife handling him the way she was. There would be no shame in it, but oh would the women gossip. And the men. And he would have to avert his eyes from every shadowed nook and cranny of his Hold by the week's end to avoid the couples of his Hold reenacting the fervent desire of their Thane and his Wife. 

(In under a month his Hold would be filled to bursting with elves and humans alike, all fucking in some manner of manic ritual. Gods and Spirits preserve him, he would not be able to look anywhere in his lands that would not remind him of that night once it was over.)

“Thinking too loud again, Cullen,” Aurum cautioned. “You need to… _relax_.”

The hand that had taken position on his hip slid slowly down and across his stomach, deftly slipping under the hem of his trousers. Her fingers wrapped around his cock, and he bit his lip to keep from moaning. Overheated, despite the chill in the air, Cullen kept his lip between his teeth as Aurum slowly teased him. The longer she persisted at her game, the more he began to lose his concentration.

Be still, be quiet, delight in his wife’s touch.

Three things and it was still too much.

Her palm was slick with his precome, a filthy reminder of how desperately he ached for something more from her. Dully, he realized that she had let go of his arms to better hold him still, and he…forgot to try and get away from her, or turn to ravage her in turn. No, he just braced his forearms against the wall by his head and let his wife fondle him and slowly grind his hips against her hands.

She chuckled, mouthing at his shoulder as both of her hands made rather short work of Cullen’s concentration. One hand remained on his cock, and the other roamed upwards to brush her fingers against his nipples.

Cullen gasped, nearly collapsing against the wall. It was only her grip on his body that kept him from shaming himself.

“Aurum, _please_ ,” he whined pitifully. He needed something more than her hand gently teasing him. “ _Please_.”

“Beg.”

He groaned loudly, driving his forehead against the wall. Pride stilled his tongue, but he wasn’t certain how longer he would be able to hold out. She hummed his name, and then pulled him away from the wall, turning him around before shoving him back up against the wall. Cullen grunted, shaking his head to try and clear it because he was _not_ going to beg his sweet wife for _anything_.

Not a single damned thing.

“ **Spirits** , Aurum, _please_ ,” he whined as she knelt before him, her mouth opening wide with promises of –

His hand found its way to his mouth and he bit down harshly on his knuckle to keep from crying out as Aurum tugged his cock free and wrapped her lips around it. Cullen tasted blood against his tongue and tried to get his jaw to relax so he didn’t hurt himself, but it was so much easier to clutch at the wall behind him for purchase so his knees didn’t go out from underneath him.

Aurum stared up at him, watching every twitch of his muscles as he gave himself over to her. Part of her wanted him to stop grabbing for purchase on the wall and put his hands to better use on the back of her head or better yet, her _ears_ , but her mouth was…occupied and this was just fine.

She slowly slid down the length of his cock until the head of his cock hit the back of her throat. For a long movement, she stayed there, barely moving except for small undulations of her throat and sloppy presses of her tongue to the underside of his cock. She waited until she was certain Cullen had regained some sense of self again. He was gasping for air around his clenched fist.

Fat drops of blood slid from between his clenched fingers to land on the exposed skin of his stomach. Copper-sweet, the smell of it twisted through the air, and Aurum flashed her fangs for the briefest moment. Cullen whispered something in Avvish under his breath, the hand he was using to brace himself against the wall coming down. Aurum leaned up as best she could without removing her mouth from his cock, silently asking for his touch.

Hesitantly, as if afraid she was still too precious to touch, Cullen placed his hand on her cheek. He stroked his thumb across her jaw, and she obliged him by taking the head of his cock into her throat.

Cullen made a sound like someone had knifed him, biting his hand all the harder to keep from shouting. Aurum purred around his cock in his throat and the hand that had been gentle on her jaw turned hard. He pulled her further onto his cock, driving his hips forward on instinct. Aurum moaned, covering his hand with hers and pulling it back so she could put it on the back of her head.

 _That_ was where she wanted it.

He cursed, and for a brief, glorious moment, fisted her hair in his hand and drove his hips forward until he could feel her nose pressed to the base of his cock. Behind his hand, his lips were curled back into a savage snarl.

“ _Thane Cullen?!_ ”

Cullen had to bite his tongue to keep from screaming, and let go of Aurum’s hair so she could pull off of him.

The speaker was a ways off, just looking for Cullen, but she still knew that she had to make herself scarce. Panting harshly, she got to her feet, a feral grin still on her face. Cullen snarled at her, not bothering to respond to the person searching for him. He was consumed with a burning need to _have_ her still. Aurum’s smirk grew into a wide grin and she had the audacity to look down at his cock still hanging out of his trousers and then _lick her lips_.

Cullen rushed her, pinning her against the wall, grabbing her by the throat. Aurum snarled, snapping her teeth at him. His response was a brutal kiss that was more teeth than lips. She clawed at his stomach, hissing his name.

“ _Thane Cullen?_ ”

He slipped his hand down her trousers, curled his fingers up into her. Aurum keened into his mouth and he felt her gush nectar against his palm.

They weren’t kissing anymore, just snarling against each other’s mouth, pulling at loose pieces of clothing, desperate to try and find a leverage point to push their advantage. Aurum pulled at his vest, biting his lip until she tasted blood.

“ _Thane Cullen!_ ”

The voice was closer now, too close to ignore any longer. Cullen tore himself away from Aurum’s intoxicating embrace.

“Ye- **yes**?” he growled.

Aurum laughed and he felt her melt away from his grasp. He felt her magic slide through the air and by the time he turned back to her, she was gone. Cullen could still smell her arousal on his skin, and he _burned_ for her. Hastily, he tucked his cock away and tried to get his breathing under control so that he could face

* * *

“ ** _CULLENSI_** ,” he roared as he burst through the doors to his rooms.

He had been distracted by the hunters of his Hold, and then his Brother, and then his Augur. Each of them, in turn had wanted to talk to him, at length, about whatever he had missed in the few days he had been consumed with his new wife. Talking had invariably turned to drinking, and now he was more than just a little drunk and fully wanting for his wife.

Aurum was lounging on the furs of his bed, naked already, painted like the Avvar women who went to war. Her chosen color of paint matched her tattoos…matched his colors. Had she painted herself with his _own_? Her hair was pulled back and glittering with glass beads and precious gems.

He stared.

His mouth went dry.

She smiled at him, and before she could so much as beckon him over, he was already stripping out of his clothes, throwing the door shut behind him. By the time he got to Aurum, she was on her back, legs splayed wide and welcoming to him, and he drowned in her softness until consciousness bled from him.

* * *

She was to be gone by the time he woke up.

Aurum looked down at her sleeping almost-husband, eyes glinting in the pale moonlight. In her hands, the shirt Alrik's not-wife had given her. She needed to go. It was a long way to the other Hold. She had found the maps the Avvar kept in a musty old room elsewhere in the Hold and studied them intently. Obligation tugged at her - she had promised to save the child-wife, and it seemed that the Spirits of the Fade knew it to be time. Dorian had said as much.

But she hesitated, looking down at him. Satiated, content, pleased, Cullen slept, curled around a blanket and fur facsimile of his wife. She did not love him, not just then, but she was reluctant to leave so quickly, without telling him. 

In the distance, outside the walls of the Hold, a wolf howled.

Aurum took a bracing breath in, bent to press a quick kiss to her almost-husband's wrist, and vanished.

She had work to do.


	13. To Chase Down Prey

The moon rose, not that it could be tracked by any other way than by the darkening of stars as it passed, but it rose nonetheless. Aurum looked up to the sky, tracking the moon’s movement to keep her mind focused on where she was going.

She could feel the howl in the back of her throat struggling to escape. Her brothers and sisters in furred flesh were howling already, celebrating in the night, in the hunt. She wanted to celebrate as well, wanted to howl her own devotions to the moon and stars above them and call attention to the glorious hunt she was undertaking, but she could not.

Her husband would wake if she howled. The Hold would awake and find the Lady of the Hold missing. She needed to be swift, sure, and silent. This was the night that the child-not-wife was expecting her arrival. There was a limited time before the child-not-wife would be in danger too deep for Aurum to scoop her out of, and with the turmoil bubbling at the edges of the Avvar lands, and the boiling sense of _wrong_ that blossomed whenever Aurum turned her senses towards the Holds of the other Avvar Thanes.

There were many things happening, but none so important as what she was doing in that exact moment.

 And what she was doing, was hunting.

The air was cold. Snow was coming soon. A blizzard if her senses were correct. And her senses were very rarely wrong. She had to get into and out of this Hold before the snows came or else her trail back would be too obvious. Her heart pounded to the beat of her footfalls as she pushed herself harder – _faster_. She had to. Her coming to Thane Cullen’s Hold had not merely been for her own clan.

There was much at foot in the Avvar strongholds, much and more that made the growing rise of the Orlesian and Fereldan kingdoms all the more worrisome. Her Clan needed the protection of a more permanent home, her Clan needed a place to withdraw to that would be safe in case the world all tipped sideways. There was many reasons for her to be here, married to a shemlen who had the magic of denying magic in his blood ( _she had forgotten to ask him about that_ ), despite anything, or anyone else she may have wanted for herself.

Clan above all else. And this was a Clan who had come to hers in seeking help. This was a matter of many important things, and she was not going to make her people suffer if she could do something to alleviate it.

Her teeth bared to the moonlight, Aurum continued her hunt. It was a long way to where she was going.

* * *

Dawn was mere hours away, and the blizzard was still fast approaching.

Aurum shook her skin off of her, rising up on her hind….rising up on her legs. There was a wall in front of her, one of the many barriers that the Avvar put up to keep the wilds that Aurum’s people lived in, out. She shook her hand out, checking to make sure she had four fingers and a thumb again. Sometimes that was something she could miss pretty easily, and climbing walls was infinitely more difficult without proper hands.

Silently, she scaled the wall, shimmying up and over. Aurum landed heavily on the balls of her feet, pulling her cloak up around her shoulders, and a hood up over her head. She did not have the permission of this Hold’s Augur to be here, and knew that the shamans here would be loyal to their Thane. She had to be silent, her magic had to be silent, and most importantly, this plan of hers had to work flawlessly the first time, because there would be no second opportunity.

She either succeeded, or the little one would die.

And Aurum would slit her own throat for the rituals of blood before allowing such a thing to befall the young one. Her Clan was to Protect others, and she had been called on to Protect this one.

Her magic was as quiet as a snow’s first falling, as was her movement through the Hold. She stuck to the periphery of others’ eyes, flitting away when it seemed someone may see her. She had to blend in, and that meant, betimes, skulking behind someone just long enough to use them as cover from another’s gaze. Small flickers of magic at the very edges of other people’s senses would be enough to get them to look away, and ideally, would not rouse any suspicion from the shamans or their Augur.

Aurum’s goal was the Thane’s house, and the little wife-who-would-not-be inside. If all had been done properly, the Thane was well on his way to being blackout drunk, incapable of defending his poor wife from any interlopers. She moved as quickly as she could manage, walking with purpose, but not so obvious as to make it so that anyone would notice her in passing and think to remark on her presence in any way.

She was a ghost, and nothing more. A visitor that no one would be able to identify, a being as ephemeral as morning mist in the sun of the day. Aurum had to be, or else this rescue would only end up being an attempt that would end in blood. The last thing she needed was a chase back to her new den. She just wanted to Protect the little one.

It was her only real thought as she darted across the final long expanse between the last person of cover and the door into the Thane Alrik’s main Hall.

She drew her cloak tighter around her shoulders and felt the magic Deshanna had woven into the fabric long ago tingle against her skin. This was an old relic – one of the great magics of Deshanna’s youth. Every mage had their own Great Magic and Deshanna had given this to her for the exact reason of her being here. It would help. Somehow, it would help. Aurum had not been of the mind to question her grandmother as to the efficacy of the magic therein.

She could feel it, and that was all that mattered. Her grandmother was with her, in some small way or another, and Aurum trusted that her grandmother would keep her safe.

Aurum slid into the Hall, hiding herself in the shadows. The instructions she had been given were sparse, only enough to get her this far. All she could hope for was that the one she was coming to save had taken the steps needed to make her life easier now that it was time for her release. If not, she was in for a very rough evening. The little one would have needed to incapacitate Alrik to some small degree or another, or else this evening was about to be one of the most difficult Aurum had faced in a long time.

Not even her own Mage Trials to become the fully recognized Second of her Clan would compare to this if the little wife-who-would-soon-not-be had not made at least a nominal attempt to make her job even the slightest bit easier.

Aurum gathered her thoughts about herself, careful to school her thoughts, no matter how much they ached to scatter. She had to remain focused and keep everything about herself within herself. There could be any number of Shamans or the Augur themselves about. This was not a Clan with only a handful of mages. Humans bred mages faster than elves could ever dream of doing, and Aurum knew that. There could be more mages than she expected and she could not let them know of her presence, lest the little one be protected in a way not even Aurum could undo.

So she had to be careful as she slunk through Alrik’s quiet Hall. The few servile Avvar that came and went to fix the Thane’s belongings and fetch him what he desired were unaware of her passing. Aurum was a part of the building itself, as far as they were concerned. She was even so careful as to close her eyes in their passing so as to not allow them to see the slivers of old starlight that were caught in the eyes of every elvhen.

To be caught by her luminescent eyes would be a very low point to this evening, especially when she still had to locate where in the Hall Alrik kept his little almost-not-wife.

Wandering aimlessly would only get her caught, eventually. Those that lived in this Hold and frequented this Hall would know the nooks and crannies better than she could, and would, eventually, notice her presence in places she did not actually belong.

The cloak around her shoulders tingled, pulling her in one direction, down a unlit hallway. Aurum followed, never willing to _not_ listen to the mystic portents of magic’d items. The hallway chosen was long and twisting, moreso than she would have thought possible, given the outer footprint of the building itself, but it seemed rather par for the course that Alrik’s living quarters would be so very confusingly oriented. Still, she had to hunt down where the little one was. The cloak seemed to be guiding her, nudging her towards an as of yet unknown goal.

Aurum started to get nervous – there were no places to squirrel away to or hide in this hallway. The longer it grew, the more Aurum wished for even a small divot to press her body into in case someone came down the hallway, but none came. It was a sheer wall on either side of her, with only the occasional lamp to light the way. She had nowhere to hide, and the hallway was much too narrow for her to bring any of her favored styles of combat into play.

But the little one needed her, and no matter how hard her heart beat against her ribs, Aurum would come for her.

She heard stumbling from further up the long hallway, and slurred words mumbled overloud and slowed, crouching down to be quieter.

“­­ _WIFEEeeh_. Yuh **can’t** dthis. Op’nn the dohr. OPNNN THEDRODR!”

Aurum pressed herself against the wall, listening intently. The voice sounded half familiar and her stomach dropped. It was the Thane Alrik. She peeked around the corner, holding her breath and sending a quick prayer to Mythal for protection. All she wanted was to protect the child, and she did not want to have to invoke vengeance.

Alrik stood at the door to the room he kept his wife sequestered in, red-faced and roaring. He beat a huge hand against the door.

“ _GET OUTTA THAROOM. GET. AUOT._ ”

His words barely made any sense to Aurum, but she could hear a defiant “No!” from the other side of the door. Aurum allowed herself a smile. Defiance warmed her heart. This defiance was exactly what she hoped to find. Granted, she would have liked more ease, and less Alrik, but this would work – or could be made to work, rather easily.

Alrik was hopelessly distracted by the door, enraged and making all the exact wrong decisions that let the ghost in his Hall draw closer to him. Aurum sidled up as close as she dared behind him, carefully ducking and dodging to keep Alrik unaware of her presence as he continued to throw his fit. She had to be very careful to avoid his swinging arms as he gesticulated, but she managed. Carefully, she reached out for the door, brushing her fingers against the wood paneling before darting away again, out of Alrik’s gaze.

The hulk of a man moved again, sweeping his arms wide, forcing Aurum to duck low to avoid him.

This was starting to take too long. With the amount of noise Alrik was making, it would be all to soon before someone wandered down the long hallway to quiet their bellowing Thane. She had to get moving on with her plan for the evening or else she would never make it out in time to avoid the blizzard.

No matter how dangerous it could be, she needed to use her magic to get Alrik to go. Away.

It was a simple thing, a flicker at the edge of vision, a whisper in the ear of a wife escaping and with a mighty booze-drenched roar, Alrik spun and stormed down the hallway, chasing after a shadow he was convinced he could make real.

Aurum waited for a tense moment, every part of her on high alert as she waited for some manner of alarm to ring out, to tell her she had been found out. The Shamans could have – the _Augur_ could definitely have “heard” her magic, and in proximity to the Thanes ‘beloved’ wife, that could become something terrible.

But she heard no sounds of warning or alarm, and with carefully measured caution, she knocked on the door.

It opened immediately and she was greeted with the owlish eyes of the young girl who had bid Aurum to come save her.

“You came?”

“Of course. You are ready?”

The little one nodded, held up a hand, and beckoned Aurum to come inside. Aurum nodded and ducked inside the room, carefully shutting the door behind her.

“I have been waiting. I know it has only been a matter of days, but…” the little one paused, pressing a hand to her breast. “I could not bear the touch of that one for any longer. Take me away, take me far from here and back home.”

Aurum only nodded, watching carefully as the girl went about gathering the few items she wanted to take with her. The lone window in the room was high on the wall, too high for the girl to climb to on her own, and it seemed as if all the pieces of furniture, few they may be, were affixed to the ground in some way.

She was more and more happy to be getting this little one out of this prison by the moment. The view of the mountain and the Hold itself was a small sliver of light that snuck in from the moon above.

“May I have your name, little one?” Aurum asked quietly, figuring it would be the best time to ask, in case of separation.

“…Memara,” the girl offered carefully, looking up at Aurum.

Aurum inclined her head gently.

“Of course, Memara.”

“You can call me Mara,” the girl said quickly, reaching out to touch Aurum’s arm. “It’s okay. I just want to get going.”

Aurum nodded.

“As soon as you have your things in order, we will…go. And never return, I promise you this much.”

Mara looked up at Aurum, her eyes hard and icy.

“If I come back, I will bring the entirety of the force of Arlathan against these walls. I am _not_ coming back here. Not unless I come to burn it all down.”

Aurum’s response was a feral grin. She could feel her power boiling beneath her skin, howling, ready, waiting for the right moment. It would be her most supreme pleasure to come back and raze this hellhole and salt the earth behind her.

“Mara, if that is what you desire, we will tear it to the ground.”

Mara tensed, and for a moment it looked as if she was considering it.

“Not now. No…not now.”

Aurum nodded.

“Then we will go.”

Mara finished packing her few items together, bundling them tight before slinging them over her shoulder. With her jaw set and eyes narrow, Mara looked up to Aurum. It was time for them to escape. There was only so much subterfuge that would work, especially with Alrik chasing shadows out and about. Perhaps the time for stealth was done.

She gathered Mara into her arms and looked up to the tiny window she had been given. However powerful the Augur of this Hold was, Aurum was about to give them a lot of things to be concerned with all at once. Chaos would be their cover, and goodness, would there be _chaos_.

Flickers of the Fade shimmered in the air around Aurum and Mara both vanished out of the room.

They re-appeared amidst a world thrown unto absolute _chaos_. The air around the both of them rippled with power, and Aurum had to bite her lip until she tasted blood to keep from howling her pleasure. Spires of ice and fire rose up from the ground, great gouts of lightning spat down from the sky and the air was filled with panicked screaming. She trembled in excitement. This was what she had wanted.

Aurum held Mara close, shielding her from the horrors that were roaring around them both. She could feel the Shamans and even the Augur rousing themselves to try and stop whatever magical mishap was befalling the Hold.

Calmly, serenely, despite the chaos around them, Aurum took Mara’s hand and lead her through the Hold, towards the main doors out of the Hold. Everything went to hells round them, but Aurum protected them from the rampaging magics around them, deflecting it from one side to the other.

The Hold was in the fullest throes of a riot. Any excuse for a fight to break out was taken, emotions were running high and being pushed higher by insidious magics Aurum was weaving through the Hold. Fights exploded over the thinnest of premises, and no matter the fire that burnt the air, or the ice that cracked through wood, or the lightning that scored huge lines through the earth, there were _fights_ to be had. Old grudges, long buried or even forgotten rose to the forefront of their minds and all at once it was time to **settle** them, once and for all.

With fists and knees and teeth and feet if need to be.

Aurum fed the emotions, pushing them higher and higher and higher, giving her own rage and fury an outlet through the men and women of the Hold. Mara clutched for her hand, and Aurum was more than happy to cover the girl with her cloak, an extra barrier against the force Aurum was bringing against this Hold.

It was a darkness in her that called for blood and retribution for every piece of suffering that Mara had endured in this sham of a marriage, and Aurum was willfully helpless in this moment to stop it from overwhelming her.

She could hear the sounds of fear and anger from around her, and could even pick out some of Alrik’s own drunken bellowing as he tried to get his shamans and Augur to figure out what it was that was happening – was it the Gods themselves acting out? Were the spirits angered? What had gone so spectacularly wrong that the world around them seemed to be revolting?

Throughout it all, Aurum kept a good hold on Mara and walked quickly quickly quickly towards the exit.

The blizzard was still coming, still pressing a cold hand against the carefully rushed plans Aurum had made. She had to move quickly, had to get distance, had to get Mara back to her clan and get herself back to the Hold that now claimed her.

They came ever closer to the main gate, and Mara, next to her, started to breathe a little heavier with excitement.

“Be calm, Mara. We are not to freedom yet.”

The young girl tried her best to be calm as they walked, but her excitement was palpable. Aurum understood the emotions, but if it became too obvious that they were doing anything other than trying to just get away from the chaos that surrounded them, any of the guardsmen that happened to keep their wits about them the slightest bit longer would be able to perhaps, make things complicated.

Time was wearing thin, and Aurum could feel the chaos she had created beginning to seep out of her control. It was coming ever closer to being tamed – the shamans and Augur were, if nothing else, competent enough to work together to begin untying the tangled knots she had woven into the fabric of the Fade around the Hold.

She began moving faster, focusing more intently on her goal, on getting Mara away, on doing her duty. The maelstrom of magic tightened, dropping away from the further parts of the Hold, focusing more intently on the gate that was her goal. Aurum needed as many people away from that area as possible to cover her and Mara as they began their escape. It was an obvious ploy, one that would draw attention to them and their escape, but it would deter followers for as long as she needed to get on the next leg of her very long journey.

 Thankfully the horses had all already spooked and the hunting dogs wouldn’t even look sideways at Aurum as she hurried Mara past their pens.

The constant magic burn was starting to take its toll on Aurum, she could feel it. She still would need some magic for the next leg of her journey with Mara, but they were still so far from the gate.

Aurum made a quick mental calculation – the amount of magic she had left in her stores after her little…display, against how much she would need for the mad race back to the safety of Mara’s clan. The math was tight, giving her barely enough energy to manage what would need to be done.

Her need for vengeance had been too much.

She scrunched her face up, and bent down to whisper “When I say go, you run,” in Mara’s ear. Mamala Deshanna had warned her of her temper overwhelming her good sense, and this was an excellent reminder that no matter the fact that her mamala had all but sold her in the same fashion as Mara had been, she had done herself a grave disservice by forgetting to listen to her mamala.

They continued their hasty walk towards the gate, Aurum on painfully high alert as her magical storm began to die out. The squabbles were not going to resolve themselves with any manner of ease, but Aurum was still far more concerned with the fact that it would really only take one moderately good look at the two of them for any of the Avvar to recognize their Thane’s wife and another, much taller elf woman.

It was a dangerous game to play, one with consequences far beyond just a simple smash-and-grab.

She could destroy the tenuous bond between all of the Avvar clans and their Dalish wives with this one move. Goodness knew how her own husband would react if he found out. Aurum did not think that Alrik would be able to sight and identify Aurum at all, but others…could. And that would be very bad for her.

Aurum swallowed a sudden knot in her throat – what if Cullen was more like Alrik than she knew? He and her hardly knew each other, and he held the same rank as Alrik did. She shook her head, scattering the thoughts away.

They were not helpful.

She had to concentrate.

Mara was clutching her arm, very nearly making small sounds of terror under her breath as they continued the very long journey towards the gate of the Hold. Aurum did not know how to offer comfort to the young woman, but still tried to move faster to assure Mara that they were going to get out of this situation just fine. It was hard to assure the terrified girl, who was waffling between excitement and apprehension with every other step.

It went as well as it could possibly go for a few steps more, but then, from behind them, they both heard the enraged screaming of an Avvish man who has found his bride missing. Mara looked up to her, luminescent eyes wide and nearly tearful.

“Run.”

Aurum let go of Mara’s hand and pushed the girl in front of her. To her credit, Mara did not hesitate, and bolted for the gate, running as fast as she could to get away.

Of course, this caught the attention of the guards, distracted though they were with the very intense magical storm Aurum had summoned, and they raised the alarm. That was more than enough to get the attention of everyone else in the Hold who wasn’t still embroiled in a fight.

Well, if they wanted something to look at, Aurum was more than willing to give them something to talk about. Mara was far enough in front of her that most of the attention was on her, so when Aurum began her own run, shedding the skin she had been born in for the one she had _earned_ , attention quickly snapped to her.

Who wouldn’t stare when a moderately tall elvhen woman was abruptly replaced with an amazingly massive snow-white direwolf?

Shouts of alarm, both for the escaping wife and the Very Large Wolf went up around the walls of the already reeling hold. Aurum ducked her head low and swept Mara off her feet. The young woman reacted quickly, grabbing onto the thick fur around Aurum’s shoulders and locking her legs tight on either side of Aurum’s ribs.

With a ungodly howl, Aurum stormed out of the gates, closing the last bit of distance in a frighteningly short amount of time. Snow flew up from beneath her paws, and she left a clear trail behind her than any hunter could follow for but a few moments before the wind from the onrushing blizzard wiped it all away.

A guardsman on the post by the gate thought quickly – and was too handy with his bow. An arrow sang out, carried by the whipping winds and sliced into Aurum’s side. She stumbled for a moment, nearly throwing Mara from her back, but regained her footing and continued her mad dash away. The arrow’s head only opened a weeping gash across her ribs, thankfully missing Mara’s leg and feet, but scarlet blood painted the snow, highlighting the path she took into the night.

The blizzard swallowed them both.

* * *

“Alrik said _what?!_ ”

“Cullen, please don’t yell. You’ll disrupt the magic again. Alrik’s wife has been stolen by a very large white wolf in the form of another elvhen. They have the scent of the wolf’s blood, but with the blizzard…they’re having trouble tracking it down.”

Dorian barely even looked up from the magical essence he was communicating through, waving Cullen back so he would not inadvertently harm the very delicate machinations at place in order to allow for inter-Hold communications.

Cullen had awoken to knocking on his door, a missing wife, a pang of loneliness and then all this strangeness with Alrik’s wife. He could not reasonably make any sort of disparaging comment about his fellow Thane deserving to have his own wife stolen back, not while Dorian was holding communications with the Augur of Alrik’s hold.

So now, he was stuck, waiting for Dorian to give him more information, trying his best not to bounce from foot to foot as this whole fiasco played out. The sun was only just now beginning to rise over the far horizon – not that anyone could see it with the blizzard obscuring everything that would have been within eyesight.

“They say the skinwalker wolf also caused a magical uprising unlike anything they’d ever seen. For a few moments, at least, the entire world was on fire with magic. The way they’re describing…Cullen, whoever stole Alrik’s wife is a strong mage. Stronger than any mage has any right to be. For them to have stolen Alrik’s wife…and for your wife to be missing…”

His blood ran cold.

“You think the one that stole Alrik’s wife stole mine too?”

Dorian only nodded briefly.

Cullen felt the muscles in his jaw pop, and shortly after, his teeth began to ache. He had to coach himself back from his anger so as to not hurt himself. Someone had taken his wife, his Aurum away and he was going to find them. Not even a blizzard would stop him.

If that was where his wife was…he was going to get her back.

* * *

He had gotten prepared in the same hazy fury that had overcome him in Dorian’s hut, grabbing whatever he had needed based purely on rote memory. It wasn’t until he was out in the wilds that surrounded his Hold with only the inkling of a direction that he realized the absolute insanity of his plan.

Here he was, miles from Alrik’s Hold and the tenuous trail that could have been left, in the middle of a terrible blizzard, dressed to kill whoever had stolen his wife away. Here he was, chasing down ghosts with only the soft pull of a quickly-fading spell that Dorian had pressed into his palms, tied to the scenting of blood the other Augur had given Dorian.

It was a way to track, yes, but not one that could survive long.

The magic would fade before too long, because Dorian could not hold the spell together from such a distance. Cullen could only hope that it would get him close enough to whoever had taken Alrik’s wife and his own that he could pick up the trail before it vanished completely.

He had to hurry.

* * *

He found the blood trail. The blizzard was in full force, howling down the mountains, threatening to obscure everything, but somehow – _somehow_ , the Gods had gifted him with just enough of a trail to follow before the magic Dorian had given him sputtered out.

He struggled through the howling winds and came to a divergence in the path not too far from the base of the mountain. It seemed as if there had been a meeting of sorts. Footprints, quickly covered over by growing drifts, only visible to trained eyes, all gathered together before dispersing. The main group appeared to have gone back towards the valley, but their trail was quickly lost to the snows.

The blood he could still follow. And as it was the blood of the one who had taken Alrik’s wife, and presumably had a part in his own wife’s vanishing, that was the trail he chose to pursue. The blood was fresher the further down the path he went, and appeared in greater and greater quantities. He was close, and he knew it.

Excitement, fury, and apprehension all rolled through his gut, and he charged along the path. He was cold, tired, aching and yet, he still grasped for his sword with chilled fingers, prepared to strike at whatever it was that had taken his wife from him. His heart pounded in his chest and no matter how he should feel, no matter how doggedly tired he should be or anything else, he wanted to hunt this wife-stealer _down._

The trail vanished before he could exact bloody revenge.

The snow whipped up into a furor around him, and he hastily backtracked until he found the last spot of blood he had been following. Again, he tried to follow it but he lost the trail again, in the same place.

Pacing back and forth, Cullen tried to find where the trail had gone, but it seemed impossible. No matter where he turned, it seemed like the trail just _vanished_. There was no next step. It seemed to lead directly into a rock of the mountain, and nothing he could think of would make it make sense. The trail just _stopped_ and he was left standing at the foot of a mountain with nothing to show for his hunt but a chill that went straight to his bones and a missing wife.

The snows whipped through the air, blinding him for a moment, and he stumbled. He tried to catch himself before he fell, missed and crashed into the mountainside. His shoulder hit the hard-packed earth and he slid to the side, into a snowdrift that collapsed almost immediately. He dropped what felt like another three feet to land hard on side.

Blinking quickly, he shook his head to clear his vision and had all of two moments to recognize that the blood trail he had lost somehow picked back up inside whatever small cave he had stumbled into before he was being dragged further into the cave, shoved onto his back and greeted with the uncomfortable press of a dagger’s tip to the delicate dip of his throat.

His reaction to defend himself would do him nothing with the full weight of his attacker on his chest, and their legs pinning down his upper arms. He could struggle free, but with the dagger already at his throat he couldn’t see it doing too much good.

Cullen was only happy that he still could draw breath. Being surprised so very quickly and pinned so very well had his pulse pounding. He had been hunting and now he was the hunted and it was only his hunter’s hesitance that kept him alive in that moment.

Gods, save him.

Save him, save him, save him, because his attacker _growled_ when he tried to move and he felt his traitorous cock harden and his blood run hot with lust-fire.

His chin tilted back, offering his throat gladly to the attacker above him and he hated how right it felt to do that, and he loved the thrill of the dance of the blade against his neck. Fingers came next, gently tracing the line of stubble across his neck, dancing up to his jaw, skirting his lips and then…

A thumb brushed across the scar that lanced up from his lip.

The first time, he counted it as the quirk of someone rather intent on killing him.

The second time, the thumb lingered too long for it to be incidental contact. His heart stuttered unevenly, and he chased the pressure of the thumb when his attacker pulled away, even though it made the dagger dig almost far enough against his skin to draw blood.

He had no idea why he was drawn to the touch of the person on top of him, but Korth save his soul, he was.

The third time the thumb returned to pass across his scar, Cullen leaned up again, pressing a rough kiss to the pad of his current captor’s thumb. The growling noise from before returned with a vengeance, but this time it came out more like the purr of the Holdbeast than a threatening sound. Carefully, and very, very slowly, he tried to remove his left hand from beneath his attacker’s leg, and to his shock, found himself perfectly capable of doing so.

His eyes were adjusting to the darkness and by the time he blinked the last of the spots out of his eyes, his arm was completely free and he could make out the shape of –

“ _Aurum?!_ ”

Another growl, and that one definitely got his cock all sorts of interested in what was happening. Fucking hells, and fuck them all, this was his wife and the relief that flushed through him did nothing to abate his rising need, only enhance it.

She looked down at him, the dim light reflecting in her eyes.

“Khalonn?”

Her voice was roughened, deeper than he was used to, and there was an accentation on his name that he was not used to. But it was her. He knew it was her. It was her and oh, _Gods_ it was her.

Carefully, he reached up to cup her cheek with his hand, brushing his thumb across her lips. She blinked rapidly, before very quickly throwing the dagger away, almost as if it had burned her.

“Khalonn… _Cullen_ ,” she whispered, slowly sliding down his chest, until she was straddling his hips and both of his arms were free.

He sat up, reaching for her, overwhelmingly happy to have found his wife. She was alive and well and he had her back in his arms again. Everything could be figured out from this point but for now all he needed was his wife safe in his arms. He ran his hands up her sides, reveling in the feeling of having her so close again. She was right here and…and…

His left hand was sticky with blood. He could feel it, seeping over the leather he had used to cover his hand on his adventure. But he couldn’t believe what he was feeling. How was she bleeding? Who had hurt her? _WHO HAD DARED TO HURT HER_?

“Amelan, ga son?” ( _Keeper, is everything well?_ ) came a muffled voice from their right.

“Ame telom, ara da’adahl.” ( _I am not well, little tree_ )

Aurum shook her head and moved to get up, reaching for the back of the cave, a weak flame dancing around her fingers. The meager light illuminated just enough for Cullen to catch sight of Alrik’s child-wife in the back corner of the cave, covered in a very deep pile of blankets and furs, and all of them looked more Dalish than Avvish. Aurum slowly stood, staggering slightly as she tried to move too quickly to Mara’s side.

Cullen was quick to catch her, doing his best to support his wife’s weight as he tried to process just what he was seeing. That was Alrik’s child-wife, and Aurum had a deep scoring arrow-wound down her left side, just over her ribs – something that would have certainly bled more than just a little bit and maybe even left a…very large and long blood trail all the way back to the Hold where Alrik’s wife…was missing from.

“Aurum, tell me you didn’t…” he whispered, as she brushed his hands off of her hips and moved to the pile of blankets.

She was stumbling, reaching for the walls of the frozen cave to steady herself before she got to the edge of the pile of blankets, where she knelt too quickly, trying to catch herself before her knees hit the ground and failing. Aurum reached for the smaller girl, gathering her into her arms and holding her close, offering what meager heat she could.

“Aurum…is that Alrik’s wife?” Cullen asked, fearing for the answer.

“No. Alrik has no wife. By Dalish countings, she is not married. By Avvish…well I just stole her. So she’s mine.”

Cullen got up quickly and rushed to his wife, enveloping her in a tight hug that he only let up on when she hissed in discomfort. He pulled away again, only to find more blood on his skin.

“Gods, Aurum, how bad were you hurt?” he asked, peeling her clothing away from her side.

“Maybe…m-maybe not a good question, ‘ma’len.”

“ ‘Ma’len?” he repeated, gently pulling her away from the bleary child (who was already halfway asleep again) and into his lap.

She didn’t even struggle, relaxing into him, resting her head on his shoulder. Cullen carefully looked down her side, trying to feel out how bad her wound was without digging his fingers into it. It was a deep wound, but not so much so that he was worried that she could die out in this cave. The fact that it kept bleeding did worry him, and he knew that it should be bandaged up soon.

“My man, myself. ‘Ma’len,” she sighed, her voice catching as his fingers brushed the edge of her wound.

“How long have you been bleeding?” Cullen asked, reaching for anything that he could use as a bandage, eventually settling on tearing a long strip out of his own cloak to wind around her middle.

“Kept tearing it. Running with a nearly full grown woman on your back is rough.”

Cullen paused at that.

“Dorian said that Alrik’s Augur saw a skinwalker take the form of a wolf and abscond with Alrik’s wife.”

“Alrik doesn’t have a wife…” Aurum said petulantly, lifting her arms up out of the way of Cullen’s bandage wrapping.

Firm enough to help staunch the bleeding and remind her to stay still, but not so firm that she couldn’t move. As soon as the bandage was tied off, and Cullen was scooting them both back to lean against the wall of the cave, Aurum relaxed. The tiredness that had been dogging her was starting to fade away, replaced by a muzzy warmth that did not abate. Cullen gently traced the edges of her wounds with his finger, not putting enough pressure on it for it to _hurt_ but rather, the repetitive motion rather had the effect of someone rubbing out an aching muscle.

Aurum mumbled something else under her breath, relaxing further against Cullen, who turned his head to press a kiss or seven to her cheek and neck.

Gods, he had been so worried about her. He had been so angry, so furious at the thought of his wife being taken from him and now he had her _back_ and yes she was injured but she had done something _fantastic_ to get it done. He was nearly delirious with pleasure at just having her back in his arms again. It hardly even mattered in that moment, because Aurum was in his lap and _fucking hells_ he was –

Aurum gave a dry laugh, and rocked her hips back against his cock. Cullen grunted harshly, grabbing at her hips and pulling her back against him. Slowly, she started to roll her hips against him, leaning her head back against his shoulder and grinning.

“Aurum,” he groaned, hitting his head back against the cave wall. “Aurum, she’s just there, we can’t – you’re hurt and-”

“Khalonn, ha’mi’in. Lasa em tua rosas’da’din…” ( _Cullen, relax. Let me make you cum_.) Aurum murmured in his ear, reaching down to undo the laces of her trousers and start to slide them down her hips.

Cullen shot a nervous look to the sleeping almost-woman to their right, warring with himself over what to do. The smooth curve of her bare ass pressed against his trouser-laces shredded his sense of dignity. He reached forward to cup a hand over her sweet, slick cunt, his fingers slipping through her folds, barely pressing them inwards, feeling out the depths of her wetness. His other hand frantically plucked at the laces of his trousers, trying to free his cock so he could push it into place against her slit.

“Gods you are _gushing_ ,” he hissed, trembling with restraint as she rutted against his cock.

She cooed at him, reaching backwards with her right arm to tug on the fine hairs at the base of his neck.

“ ‘Ma’len, sathan, please. I ache for you.”

Cullen swore his eyes rolled as she carefully angled herself so that the next roll of her hips would have the head of his cock briefly jut up into her before sliding out. She continued this sweet torture, her mouth dripping endearments and encouragements both, but never in such vulgar tones that there was a chance for the younger woman sharing the cave with them to hear.

Part of Cullen thought it rude to be doing this, part of him wanted to ask Aurum for a blanket, for some manner of modesty covering, but then she was leaning forward and pressing her chest into the ground while her ass rose up into the air in front of him, and he was presented with a view that spoke to every last one of his baser needs and desires – his wife’s delicious, sweet, plumped, slick petals.

Korth save him and curse him he didn’t know what to do. He wanted to bury his face in his wife’s cunt as he had taken so much pleasure in doing as of late. But…time was of the essence. And he ached to be inside her, ached to spend himself inside of her, but he had only a few minutes, not the hours he wanted.

He got into hasty position behind her, thrusting his cock into her welcoming depths with barely and coherent thought leading the action.

This woman had a way of just…shutting down every rational thought that pinged about in his brain. She was bleeding, _injured_. She had stolen the wife of another Thane and now he was complicit in the stealing. He had tracked her down with the intent to hurt whoever had taken his wife from him and now?

 **Now**?

Now he was biting his lip to keep from making a sound. Now he was pushing down on the back of her head. Now he was pulling her hair. Now he was thrusting and thrusting and thrusting into her and leaning over her so he could mouth at her shoulder.

He felt her inner walls flutter briefly before Aurum fumbled to get a hand free so she could bite her thumb to muffle her sweet moans as her orgasm overtook her.

It was like her body was trying to milk him, pulling him deeper into her and with a shocked cry he only barely managed to bite back with a blood-drawing clench of his teeth on the meat of Aurum’s neck, Cullen came as well. His world exploded with her song as her blood washed over his teeth, and for a blisteringly bright moment, he was absolutely lost to himself. Lost in the haze of pleasure and song, Cullen only barely caught himself from collapsing over Aurum’s prone form.

Gasping for air, Cullen pressed apologetic kisses to the seeping wound in the shape of his teeth, licking blood away and nuzzling her neck as he slowly withdrew from her. With shaking fingers he fixed his trousers, and did his absolute best to not dive facefirst into her sweet cunt and lick his spend out of her. He watched hungrily as she fixed her own trousers back around her hips and lay out on the cave floor.

Slowly, she rolled onto her back, being gentle with her wounded side, and reached back for Cullen, who quickly moved to cuddle up with her. He did his best to make himself comfortable for her, helpfully offering his arm as a pillow for her. Aurum curled into his side with a happy chirr, nuzzling close and preparing to fade into sleep.

“Now that the both of you are done, would you like a blanket?” came Mara’s voice after a few seconds of silence.

Aurum could _feel_ Cullen’s blush heating his skin and was quick to pepper his cheek with a good half dozen or so kisses before reaching backwards for a blanket to cover the both of them. As soon as the blanket was settled over the both of them and Aurum’s breathing was starting to even out, Cullen’s mind very unhelpfully supplied him with about fifteen questions he still needed to ask Aurum. But she shushed him, mumbled a unusually grumpy “Thinking too loud, Cullen” before falling asleep.


	14. To Create an Opportunity

Cullen woke up, his shoulder and hip sore. It seemed he and Aurum had made it necessary for mattress re-stuffing to be necessary, because he was just getting to the age where it was more and more uncomfortable to have his bed lumpy and thin in places. He would have to ask –

Blinking, he registered that he wasn’t actually in his bed, but on the ground. On the ground, where it was cold and yes, very hard on his shoulder and hip, but there was a warm, soft, sleeping Aurum curled into him, so it couldn’t really be all that bad.

Then he remembered that he had hunted down his own wife, found that she had stolen Alrik’s wife and then he had _fucked_ his wife in celebration of it all. Gods, he had really had quite the wild hunt of an evening. Everything had been so much and there was so much more she could do and would do and here he was, laying in some cave, with a Dalish-woven blanket around his shoulders and his wife wrapped around his waist.

Cullen could not remember a time where he had ever been so magnificently fucked upon waking. There was no good option here. He could not take Alrik’s once-wife back to the Hold where she had been stolen to. Not without being made complicit in the stealing, not without having to explain what his own wife had done to Alrik’s. He could not simply walk back to his own Hold with Alrik’s once-wife in tow and expect everything to work out well. It just wouldn’t work that way. There would be questions and no matter what Aurum said petulantly into his neck when he tried to ask her about it, it was Alrik’s wife in the pile of blankets beside them, and not just some poor lost Dalish girl.

“Thinking too loudly, ma’vheraan,” Aurum purred, leaning up to kiss behind his ear. “I know what I am doing.”

He wanted to ask her for more information, but she was seemingly quite content to just curl up into him all the more closely and say nothing more.

Cullen had known her for a matter of days that only just barely stretched into weeks, and trust did not come easily to him. But Aurum asked it of him so easily, he felt rather like he should be able to give it to her.

Perhaps she did not know what she was asking for when she asked him to remain silent on the matter and still his thoughts. Alrik was a Thane – they held the same rank and Cullen was no All-King to demand the respect and obedience of the other. Alrik’s Thaneship had been so very crassly insulted and it would be ridiculousness to assume Alrik would not figure some way to lay the blame on _someone_.

If Alrik’s Augur was half as smart and talented as Dorian was, Cullen was certain that Alrik would be on his doorstep baying for his wife’s blood. By rights, Alrik would be well within his powers to execute Aurum on the spot, or challenge her to gain back what he had lost.

Alrik had lost a wife…

Cullen unconsciously tightened his arms around Aurum’s waist. This one was _his_ and he was not going to lose her. Not to Alrik, not because of Alrik and not because he would _be_ like Alrik.

There was a similar darkness, a similar madness that burned in his and Alrik’s veins. They had the touch of the Power in them, an old Avvish secret. They surrounded themselves by magic, but could not be touched by it, could chose to simply move around it, through it, deny it. He had used it but that once on Aurum, an instinctive rise of the Power in response to a Mage’s Challenge. She had been startled that one time but he had never used the full extent of it on _anyone_.

Alrik would not share his compunction.

Alrik could come and _hurt_ his wife and that made something dark and dangerous rise up in his gut. He wanted to protect Aurum and it didn’t matter what Storm he felt crackling beneath her skin and through her bones, she was so small and delicate beneath him that the instinctive surge of protection roared louder than the sneaking suspicion that everything Dorian said about how insanely powerful Aurum was as a mage was accurate.

She was his wife and –

Aurum placed gentle fingers on his chin, tapping his lips gently.

“It will be well, ma’vheraan. It will be well. I promise you.”

He wished that she was right.

* * *

Their trip back to Kingshold was not without plenty of time for Cullen to think about what was happening and what would happen. The fierce snows kept conversation to a minimum, and it seemed as if Aurum’s first concern was ensuring that the other, smaller elf was warm.

He couldn’t think of any way for this to work out in their favor, couldn’t conceptualize how they could get out of the inevitable clusterfuck that Aurum had entangled him and her and _them_ in. Alrik would come – Dorian would have to inform the other Thane that his wife was here but that the young one was no longer his wife and that it had been Cullen’s wife that had caused this to come to pass and the other Thane would come and Cullen could lose _his_ wife.

Even as Aurum ducked into the shaman’s hut with Alrik’s wife in tow, even as Dorian calmly pushed him out of the hut and closed the door on his knees before he could come back in.

He was left to pace uneasily in the Great Hall, hands worrying his sword’s hilt, waiting for Aurum to return to him, waiting for any of this to start making sense because there was a sense of absolute calm amongst those in his Hold that seemed misplaced, given that he had the stolen wife of another Thane sitting in the Shaman’s hut, clearly without a care in the world.

He wanted to know, he wanted to ask questions and take his wife back to their shared room and make certain that no one ever came to harm her or take her from him. Aurum was his wife and he took that incredibly seriously. She was his wife and while he did not know for sure if he loved her yet – the time he had spent with her was not enough for him to know enough of anything of her – he did not want her taken away from him.

Cullen ached for Aurum’s comforting pressure against his chest, but she was still gone. Somewhere with Dorian and the little one who had once been a wife to another Thane. Somewhere not with him.

The sun set on the day, and the snows receded. Aurum still did not return to him.

Cullen went to bed alone.

* * *

He awoke alone in the morning, with the scent of Aurum hovering in the air, and a warm spot in his bed where she could have been. Cullen sat up quickly, reaching for her, hoping against hope that she was still there, but there was nothing. His stomach dropped, and he got up, prepared to do his duty as Thane.

There was still an aching in his heart though.

He wanted to know what was happening, what she would be planning. Alrik was undoubtedly on his way – Dorian would not have been able to hide the presence of Alrik’s once-wife and Aurum’s own involvement this long. Even the slightest hint of her involvement, and Alrik would come for her. Alrik would come for her, and Cullen would not be able to help her as he wanted to.

Dorian came to him when he went searching for his wife and told him to be at peace. This was going to take a while and while they expected Alrik to be present soon – how much Alrik knew of the situation, Dorian would not tell him – Cullen needed to know that Aurum was doing her best but still needed to be prepared, and that would take her a while. There was much for her to do and much to be done and yes, it was better for them both if Cullen did not know what it was that was being done in the immediate time.

He had to accept this. He was given no other option.

* * *

Alrik arrived early the next morning, announcing himself with a booming roar. Cullen was ready. Dorian had roused him early and told him to get ready, with plenty of assurances that Aurum was doing much the same. Cullen steeled himself, dressing sharply as he could without giving the appearance of expecting war between the two Holds. He was not nervous, he told himself a dozen times as he swept his fur-lined cloak over his shoulders and fixed his sword to his belt.

He wasn’t nervous, but there was an undeniable tenseness in his shoulders and around his throat as he walked out of his Hall to greet the visiting Thane.

To his surprise, Aurum was already standing in front of the Hall, her hair pulled back and up like had seen the first time he met her. It had not been so long ago, but the sight made his heart ache all over again. She wore something unfamiliar, but undeniably Dalish, and next to her, garbed in the same colors with her hair done in a shaded copy of Aurum’s, was Alriks not-wife.

Cullen’s sharp double-take was echoed by the other Thane, who stopped dead and gaped, open-mouthed at Aurum, then at the younger woman next to Aurum, then turned his gaze on Cullen.

“ _You did this?!_ ” Alrik howled in Avvish, pointing an accusing finger at Cullen.

“Nothing has been done, Thane Alrik. You are welcomed to Kingshold. I am-”

“ _I am not here to listen to your rabbit-ear mage, Cullen, I want blood!_ ” Alrik continued, his voice carrying over Aurum’s for the very briefest of moments.

“ ** _I_** Am Aurum Kingshold, blood Lavellan. You are a guest and I will ask of you the guest’s politeness to myself and my Clan.”

Aurum’s voice carried the weight of thunder, and the very quick-to-gather crowd turned to her en masse. Cullen’s heart skipped and he felt lust-fire blooming in his gut again. Aurum did not flinch, not even as Alrik stormed towards her, head down and hands grasping for the hilt of his weapon.

To the side, Dorian gripped the staff of his station as Augur, anticipating immediate bloodshed. Aurum was his Thane’s wife and he would have to defend her if Alrik chose to incite violence, but at the same time, his action on behalf of Aurum would be seen as an act of war against the other Hold and that would bring disaster to Kingshold – they were barely holding on as it was, barely able to scrape by, and with winter fast approaching with unseasonably harsh blizzards so soon in the fall…they couldn’t handle a battle with Alrik’s Hold, let alone a sustained force.

There was no easy, elegant answer to that, no matter Aurum’s claims to the contrary.

Alrik stopped mere inches from Aurum, his face thrust cruelly close to her own, his lips pulled back in a sneer. Aurum did not move a muscle, not even blinking as the huge bulwark of a man loomed over her.

Alrik blinked and stared at her, as if seeing her for the first time.

“You took my wife.”

“I took nothing,” Aurum said firmly.

“She stands next to you – _you took her_!!”

Aurum turned to the young woman standing next to her, brows furrowed. The younger woman looked up and Cullen swallowed a knot that nearly threatened to choke him. The young one’s eyes had not been purple before, but they were now. Purple, ringed in blue, just like Aurum’s.

“Do you belong to this one, Mera?”

“No,” the young one said firmly, not looking away from Aurum.

“ _SHE IS LYING_.”

Beside Alrik, flinching away from the larger man was Alrik’s Augur. A slighter build than most Avvar, Alrik’s Augur seemed to shrink away from Alrik as the massive man gestured grandly and snarled Avvish at anyone who would look at him. Aurum waited, placidly, carefully, her body in between Alrik and Mera, in case things truly got out of control. But she said nothing, waiting for Alrik’s temper tantrum to wind down.

“Did I take you from him, Mera?” she said when it appeared Alrik was drawing breath.

“No,” said the young one again, her eyes narrowed, her hands balled into fists.

Aurum’s grin was tight, feral. There was nothing more pleasing to her in this moment than Mera staring up at her, eyes dark with power and _promise_ , dark and terrifying. This was what had been foreseen and perhaps she had not been certain that she was interpreting things well or right, but she had done what she had thought would be the best course of action.

Everything was working out more beautifully than she could have ever hoped.

Alrik roared again, beating a fist against his chest.

“I will have _blood_ for what you have done! I will destroy you and your Hold for this, Cullen Lion-hearted! Give her _back_.”

Alrik took a long step forward, and Aurum did as well, challenging him with an upward jut of her jaw.

“I took nothing and I will give nothing.”

“I will have justice for what you did. Cullen, give your wife to me if you are going to take _mine,_ ” Alrik demanded, pointing to Aurum, who snarled.

“I am no bauble to be taken, _shem_. Lay a hand upon me and you will know my fury.”

Aurum’s voice was cold, and she stood tall, staring down Alrik without an ounce of hesitance in her. Alrik was taken aback, _again_ because there was a promise of violence unending ringing in her words that many Avvish could never hope to match. She stood there, completely at ease in her own body, power humming through the air around her and Cullen _knew_ this really was not the best time for it, but he _also_ very much was in lust with his wife in that moment.

“I will have **justice**!” Alrik yelled.

“So you shall,” came Aurum’s placid response.

“Give me back my _wife_!”

“She’s not yours. I will give you nothing.”

“I will take her by force and fire, I swear it on Korth himself – Cullen if I do not have my wife by sundown I will bring the force of my Hold against you!”

The conviction in Alrik’s voice made a shiver race down Cullen’s spine. Surreptitiously, he tried to catch Dorian’s eye, in an attempt to try and communicate to his Augur that he desperately needed to cool the situation down. How, Cullen wasn’t even sure he could make even the start of an argument, but this was cycling upwards and towards danger that threatened his entire Hold. Cullen could not think of a way to end this that would not end in bloodshed. His, his wife’s, or the stolen girl with the odd-colored eyes – one of them would bleed before this day’s end.

He did not doubt Aurum. But he knew Alrik well.

But Dorian would not look at him. He was focused solely on Aurum and Alrik, hands white-knuckled on his staff.

“Are you bringing threat to my clan, Thane Alrik?” Aurum drawled smoothly, the tension bleeding out of her.

This…couldn’t have been what she wanted, Cullen thought. But the way her shoulders relaxed and hands unclenched made him think otherwise. Whatever it was that was happening, he had to trust that his wife and his Augur were prepared, in whatever was going to pass.

Alrik roared his assertion that yes, he very much planned on tearing down this Hold and killing a good number of everyone in it.

“And you threaten my Clan, knowing I am its Keeper?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Alrik snarled. “Your Hold will fall if I do not get my wife back.”

Aurum’s chin dropped, her eyes narrowing.

“She is not your wife and you offer threat to my Clan. Alrik, do you challenge this Clan-”

She couldn’t even get the entirety of the question out before Alrik was interrupting her to scream his assertion that yes, that was exactly what he was doing.

Cullen reached for his sword hilt, but Dorian chose exactly then to catch his attention and jerk his head to the left. Pulling up short, Cullen furrowed his brows and stared at Dorian. One of Dorian’s hands came off his staff and carefully, slowly, came down, his palm pointed to the floor, all his fingers together.

_Don’t._

Cullen swallowed the knot that bloomed in his throat, and tried to rein his emotions in. This was still…according to plan. He had to trust Dorian. And Aurum. Gods, but she was so _small_ compared to Alrik.

“I accept your challenge, Thane Alrik. The arena has been prepared. You have the selection of weapon. I will honor your selection.”

Aurum inclined her head gracefully, and the smallest of grins hovered around the corner of her mouth. Alrik gaped at her, at a loss for words for a long moment.

“I am not. Fighting. **_You_** ,” he spat with an air of finality.

“Then your challenge is considered rescinded. Mera will stay here until such a time that I can locate her clan. Lostlings belong home, wouldn’t you think. Come now, this way, child.”

Aurum made to gather Mera up and turn her back towards the Great Hall when Alrik managed to splutter: “I will fight no woman for my wife!”

Aurum turned back to him, the same damnable grin on her lips.

“You challenge Aurum Kingshold, blood Lavellan, Keeper of this Clan. I am a woman, yes. I am undefeated, yes. I am defender of those of my Clan. If you want to take this one from me and my clan, you will fight me. You may have the choice of weapon for the challenge. The arena is prepared. Are you challenging me, Thane Alrik?”

Dorian grinned, relief apparent on his face.

This _had_ been what the two of them had been planning. A duel between Aurum and Alrik. A duel where Alrik was allowed to choose weapons. Gods save Aurum, she was going to do battle with one of the most ferocious warriors of the Avvar. Each of the Thanes were strong in their own way – they had to be to keep their Holds and lands safe, and to inspire the people who joined underneath them. There had not been an All-King in living memory, and Thanes had not tried to vie for that honor for fifty years before that.

He still knew that Alrik was a terror at swordplay. Alrik was big, heavily muscled with a thick layer of fat over that. Aurum was so slender next to him, her tattoos and the set of her jaw the only things that made it seem like there was even anything approaching even in the fight that was about to happen.

Aurum’s absence over the last day had started to make sense, however. Now that it was clear that Dorian and Aurum had been planning to have this fuel come to fruition in order to protect Mera, there would have had to have been a lot of preparations made, sacrifices and sanctifications too. Dorian would not have allowed this to happen without consulting the Spirits and making the appropriate gifts to the various Gods.

Aurum would have had to had prepared as well, or else Cullen rather doubted that Mera’s eyes would have turned the same shocking purple color that hers were.

Alrik looked apoplectic with fury, and for a moment, Cullen was nearly certain that he was about to see another Thane start a war by striking down another Thane’s wife after being issued a challenge. It was a beautifully done thing, Cullen had to admit. Alrik had to accept the challenge if he wanted any chance to get “his wife” back, and…even if Cullen was not completely certain of his wife’s martial prowess, he was confident she could be a threat to Alrik.

“ _Fine_ ,” he spat, with no small amount of actual spit flying out of his mouth as he did so. “But we will battle with sword and shield!”

Aurum seemed taken aback at that, the grin on her mouth faltering for a moment.

Cullen’s stomach dropped. She had seemed so confident, like she had thought everything through. She should have known, Dorian should have _told her_ at the very least, that Alrik, like most of the Thanes preferred sword and shield to do battle in. The Orlesian incursions that had happened over the past few decades had seen to each Thane being battle-ready, and save for a few of the Thanes deeper into the mountains, most Thanes and warriors stuck to swords as their main weapon.

Dorian would have told her this. Anyone could have told her this. But her surprise had him doubting everything. He was worried all over again, anxiety stealing up over him in a rush.

If Aurum lost, her life could be forfeit, and Mera certainly would be. Alrik could just as wasily demand Aurum replace his stolen wife. By the rules surrounding this manner of challenge, the winner would be taken to be in the right, the blessings of the Gods and Spirits upon them. Aurum’s own deities may protect her in their own ways, but…

“I am Lavellan, Thane Alrik,” she said slowly, looking up to the Thane with her brows still drawn down.

“I don’t give a shit about your name, rabbit-ear.”

The slur only drew a long, slow blink from Aurum, even though Mera behind her hissed at the word, no doubt having heard it plenty of times back when she lived with her…captor.

“I am Blood Lavellan, Thane Alrik. And _you_ challenge _me_ to sword and shield?” Aurum shook her head, even as Alrik turned away, barking orders to his men to gather what he would need to prepare himself for the battle.

Quietly, to Alrik’s back, and for no one’s benefit but her own, Aurum finished her thought: “We trace our lineage back to Arlathan…”

Cullen had no frame of reference for what she said, and he knew Alrik would have had even less of an idea of what to do with the information. But he did not miss how Alrik’s Augur flinched like Aurum had threatened to hit him. He did not miss how the Augur’s face paled more than it had already, and how the Augur looked to the previously innocuous-seeming chips of stone set into the filigree-thin chains that dangled from Aurum’s clothes. And with his attention drawn there, it…did look like the blue stone chips were set in some sort purposeful pattern, and the more he looked at them, the more it felt like his gaze was being drawn deeper into the pattern, like he was just moments away from figuring out the logic of it all if he just kept following the lines with his eyes.

He had to stop when his eyes began to ache from not blinking.

As attractive as his wife was, he rather doubted he could ever truly stare at her - still clothed, no less – and be so enraptured. Something deeper was afoot.

But he had no time to talk to his wife or his Augur before they were both hustling Mera back into the shaman’s hut. Without him. Again.

With the Hold already abuzz with the quick-flowing information that Aurum was going to duel Alrik, perhaps even to the death, Cullen had his own work to tend to.

It did not matter how his heart yearned for just five minutes with Aurum to talk to her, to hold her, to let her assure him that she had everything under control and that this wasn’t going to end badly.

He didn’t want to lose her.

Not ever.

 _Especially_ not to Alrik.


	15. To Exploit an Oversight

Cullen was hustled along by Dorian to the prepared dueling arena. Aurum walked alone, and despite Cullen’s insistence that he be allowed to talk to his wife, he had to watch her walk apart as she prepared for the battle with Alrik. He wanted to be near her, to try and warn her of how Alrik fought, to give her any sort of information that could give her an edge against the other Thane.

But that was the point of this whole separation. To keep from any sort of information passing between the two of them, or anyone. Or at least keep the appearance of not passing information, because the honest truth was that it was a part and parcel to try and give whatever information possible to your Champion to assure their victory.

Dorian would never let him cheat, not on something like this, just in case it got out that they had done so and Alrik was given any potential recourse to take back his wife, or, Spirits forbid, Aurum. He knew he had to respect the rules in order to protect whatever outcome was going to shake out in all of this, but…that was still his wife.

She seemed completely uninterested in any offerances of help or blessings, brushing questing hands off her shoulders and striding confidently to the arena.

Alrik had a full retinue of sycophants attending to him, adjusting his armor, presenting him with his sword and shield, carefully preparing him for the battle with Aurum. His armor was well-taken care of, sturdy and strong, bearing the mended scars of previous battles and long-fought victories. His attendants were careful with their fingers, tightening every strap and tucking the free ends away and out of the way.

Cullen didn’t think he could stay calm for this fight. This was unlike any battle he had been made to witness before. Every last one of his nerves was on edge, jangling loudly, urging him to do _something_ , or _anything_ , because this was agony.

His wife was walking willingly into a danger that she and Dorian had clearly planned out, had clearly been expecting and prepared extensively for this exact moment, but he didn’t have any control over it, didn’t have any way to make sure he could protect his wife.

And then she stepped into the arena with no armor, no weapon, no shield, no nothing. Just what she had been wearing before, in its entire simplicity.

Cullen held his breath, trying to keep from being obvious in his concern. The others did not have to share his own quietude, and a dozen whispers broke out all around the arena. Aurum was horribly underdressed, and that only became more apparent when Alrik stepped down into the arena.

Alrik was bedecked in armor, with a massive shield strapped to his left arm, and a huge sword gripped in his right hand. The sword was wickedly sharp, and Cullen knew how many people Alrik had killed with that sword, knew that Alrik never lifted it without intending to utterly decimate whatever stood in his path.

And it was _his wife_ that Alrik was hefting that sword against.

His wife who was wearing no armor, bore no weapon except for the small dagger on the back of her belt.

His heart leapt into his chest as he watched Aurum incline her head to invite Alrik to the battle.

She was relaxed, at peace. She was Blood Lavellan, and the power of ages burned in her blood. She was confident in her skills and knew she had nothing to fear in this fight. The man facing her down was just a man. He was nothing to her. She was going to make this shemlen pay for hurting Mera. It was nothing she was concerned with.

Alrik, for once, seemed content to remain silent, confidence oozing from his every pore. He was ready and practically certain that this fight was already over.

All Aurum had to her armor were chips of blue stone on chains over her regular clothing. She was certain she still had the upper hand in all of this. Alrik was quite simply, not prepared for the battle that would come to him as soon as it was time to battle.

Dorian intoned the solemnities before the battle could begin. Alrik swung his sword impatiently, and Aurum remained still, her ear only flicking out to dissuade and errant fly from getting any closer. Solemnities done, Dorian stepped out of the arena, with one last look over his shoulder to Aurum, concern evident in the furrow between his brows.

She winked at him, and gave her attention back to Alrik.

“Are you prepared, Thane Alrik?” she drawled, inclining her head in a half-bow.

He snarled at her, slicing the air in front of him with his massive sword. Aurum shrugged in response, not finding anything particularly impressive by Alrik’s attempt to show his strength and ferocity off.

She turned ever so slightly to look at Cullen behind her. His grip was white-knuckle on his sword’s hilt and his mouth was set in a thin line. Aurum grinned at him, and even though she knew overt communication was forbidden, she hummed the first few bars of _their_ song under her breath as she turned back to Alrik.

All that was left now was for Dorian to announce that the battle was to begin, and then she could finish this all up and get back to tending to Mera’s needs. It was going to be a good day, by the end of it. She already tasted victory.

It was as sweet as ever.

Dorian called out the beginning of the duel, and with a yell, Alrik charged.

Aurum crouched down, readying herself for the fight, diving out of the way of Alrik’s bull rush at the last possible moment. She rolled, sand spraying around her, and found her feet, popping up with a grin. She whistled, high and loud, and Alrik spun, his sword flashing out towards the sound of her voice.

Aurum danced out of the way of that strike, her feet sure in the ankle-deep sands of the arena. She looked up to Cullen and winked before darting out of the way of Alrik’s sword once again.

She was untouchable in the arena, a wraith constantly on the edge of Alrik’s range, taunting him into further overextending and further overextending until he was red-faced and breathless. Aurum was not going so far as to grin – her focus was still completely on Alrik and his every single move, but she was not as concerned as Cullen would have preferred for her to be.

The fight continued in this vein for a good long while, until Alrik was gasping for air, his sword drooping just the slightest bit. Aurum’s eyes lit up, and her mouth finally ticked ever so slightly into a grin. She let Alrik draw closer to her, goading him into swinging harder and faster, letting him think he was getting closer to her.

Cullen’s grip was tight on the hilt of sword at his hip, and he watched as carefully as he dared as Alrik’s sword got closer and closer to Aurum’s unarmored skin. His breath caught in his throat as Alrik swung for her neck, but Aurum was just a hair too far out of his range, the tip of his sword missing her throat by a heart-stopping minutiae.

“ _FIGHT ME_ ,” Alrik roared in Avvish, beating a hand against his armored chest.

Aurum smirked at him, shrugging as she, again, darted out of the path of his blade at the last moment. He overextended, and over extended, and overextended, constantly chasing her as she lead him across and around the arena. She was dastardly quick, fleet and agile, managing to consistently convince Alrik that if he swung faster or right _now_ he’d manage to catch her and cut her down.

“ _FIGHT ME YOU RABBIT-EARED WHORE!!_ ”

She stopped dead, well within Alrik’s range, her body tense and prepared for battle. Alrik roared victory, his sword swinging wildly for her midsection.

Cullen gasped, his hands coming up to call the battle, to defend his wife from death because having her being taken was so much better than losing her forever, but Dorian’s hand caught his wrist and held it down.

The sword swung, and Cullen closed his eyes, not willing to watch his wife die.

A sound like a thousand bells rang out, and a hush fell over the raucous crowd. Cullen looked, and his heart pounded against his ribs. Aurum stood, glittering in golden armor, a sword with runes burning brightly along its blade, catching Alrik’s own blade and stopping it in its path.

She was wrapped in sunlight, blue gems humming with a power Cullen couldn’t hope to ever understand, and she held herself with an easy grace. Alrik stared, and now, Aurum’s smile finally turned properly wolfish.

“I am Aurum, Blood Lavellan, first of my name, Thane Avvish. You’re going to regret this fight before the end.”

Alrik snarled, pulled back and then a proper duel began.

Or, it would have been proper if Alrik had not already exhausted himself trying to cut her down earlier. And they were in no way even close to matched in skill, as it soon became abundantly obvious. Aurum’s every move was one that was the product of ages of learning, of a training that had remained unchanged since the times of Arlathan. When Alrik swung to injure or maim her, he was turned away with something that looked no more demanding than a casual gesture of her arm.

Even his hardest strike could not make her move, nothing disrupted her form or her grace, and even the most untrained eye could see that there was no true competition between the two of them. Aurum had Alrik beaten, and had had him beaten from the moment he had chosen sword and shield.

Light reflected off of her glittering armor and blazing blade and Cullen’s worry had morphed entirely into lust. His wife was indomitable, a glittering, glowing, glorious woman who carried a power beyond anything anyone in his Hold – or any Hold – had ever seen.

Cullen looked up to Dorian, whose tanned cheeks were flushed, and his mouth was hanging just the barest bit open. Cullen couldn’t deny that he felt the same way when he looked at Aurum, as she dueled a Thane of one of the more populous Holds as if it were nothing – _nothing_ – to her.

Their swords met, and Alrik, at a breaking point finally, roared. Cullen felt the cold wash of the Dominion of the Hold prickle against his skin. Aurum flinched away, her armor and blade flickering ominously.

The dread feeling in the pit of his stomach was back, and Aurum’s brows drew down and together. Her magic guttered out, and the glittering armor vanished. Alrik hissed, chasing her down, slashing madly with his sword, forcing her to scramble.

She snarled, and dove out of the way of Alrik’s next attack, rolling to her feet and standing with surprising speed. The crow of victory Alrik gave was short-lived as Aurum’s golden armor was back almost immediately, once she found her feet again, and this time, her response was vicious, a slash to Alrik’s knee that switched angles as soon as it bit into his skin, twisting and slashing upwards towards his hip.

Alrik’s own sword bit into her shoulder, glancing off the armor and clattering uselessly to the sandy floor. Aurum knelt, her sword and armor vanishing. Her arms came out wide to catch Alrik as he fell. Blood was cascading down his leg and she knew it wouldn’t be long for him.

He fell, blood pooling around his leg, turning the sand into a slurry around the both of them. Aurum held him as his eyes unfocused and his body went loose. The crowd was silent. In the whole world it was just the two of them.

Alrik gasped for air, but it was clear that this was his death upon him. He stared blankly at Aurum, his gaze finally slipping to pierce the Veil. In that moment, Aurum knew he could _see_ her in the way very few people ever could manage. His breath rattled in his lungs and he gasped something in Avvish that she did not know how to translate.

She offered her own words in return, in soft, subtle Elvhen, the high sacred speech that few ever heard. She reached to the dagger on the back of her belt and quietly, quickly, spun the tip around and slid it gracefully and smoothly into a slim gap in Alrik’s armor. She found his heart in moments, and the knife’s blade did short work of a slow death.

Alrik’s spirit left him.

Aurum stood, covered in his blood, the heart-blood stained knife still in her hand.

The world around her was quiet and still as she approached Mera, the blade held across the palms of her hands. She knelt in front of Mera, offering the blade to the young girl.

With the knife still wet, Mera took it, pressed her mouth against the flat of the blade (leaving blood smeared across her face), and then slid it into the sheath at her own hip. Aurum grinned at Mera, and stood with ease, pressing a hand to Mera’s cheek and then turning to Cullen.

“The matter is settled, Husband mine,” she said, her breath slow and even.

“Hail Cullen Lion-Hearted, Thane Kingshold, Thane Cliffhearth!”

Cullen looked up sharply to the Augur that had once belonged to Alrik. Alrik’s people were kneeling in prostration to _him_. He blinked, looking between Aurum, Dorian, and the new Thaneship he had just inherited. Aurum grinned, and moved to stand next to him, placing a bloodied hand on his arm.

“I believe, Husband mine, that you have some new land to tend, and people to protect. A good day.”

He had no words. But his heart sang regardless. His wife...the Spirits had been good to him so far, better than he could have ever hoped for.

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